


Through the Fog and Smoke

by prisma134



Series: Our Souls Do Sing Loudly [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Betrayal, Blood and Gore, Churches & Cathedrals, Cliffhangers, Corruption, Depression, Drug Use, Engineering, Escape, Everyone is racist to the Irish, FBI, Forced Prostitution, Gangs, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt No Comfort, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inner Strength, Irish, Kidnapping, M/M, Mob Boss Bucky Barnes, Moral Dilemmas, Murder, Mutilation, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Plotting, Police, Politicians, Posion, Power Dynamics, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Prosthesis, Prostitution, Racism, Realizations, Rediscovery, Religion, Revenge, Russian, Sad, Scheming, Self-Discovery, Sex, Strength, Undercover, Violence, bdsm implications, high tech, mob!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:14:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24414178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prisma134/pseuds/prisma134
Summary: The battle to save his lover has begun. Brock has kidnapped Steve Rogers and imprisoned him within a Hydra base. It is up to Bucky to do the unthinkable and expand his empire, trust old foes, and forge new friendships. Revenge is the only thing that matters, and he will stop at nothing to assure Steve's safe return.**WARNING: READ NOTES**
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Our Souls Do Sing Loudly [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/783153
Comments: 12
Kudos: 65





	Through the Fog and Smoke

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING**  
> This third installment of this series is graphic and depicts graphic violence, gore, and death. If this deters you DO NOT READ. You have been warned.
> 
> I've had serious writer's block on this piece for a while now, but I finally decided what direction I wanted this to go in! I hope you enjoy. This piece requires previous knowledge on the two previous parts to understand characters, relationships, and motivations. I advise you to read the second part of this story if you have not done so.

The skyscrapers were towering above him, and the sounds of people getting into scraps or talking as they ducked into their cabs was comforting. Currently, he was kneeled in a back alley, one hand occupied with his phone and the other – with his conquest.

The sticky white cream like substance dripped down his throat. If he wasn't careful, he could choke with how fast he was swallowing. The salty gooey – and warm taste landed on his tongue and lingered. It was somewhat bitter, but nevertheless he loved the taste. He could never get enough, he was like a two dollar whore with how enthusiastic he was about devouring all he was offered.

He came back for another slurp, diving in ravenously. He was lust crazed and excited, hardly scrolling through the messages on his phone. However, in the middle of his yearly allotted _indulgence_ , he received a call on his cellphone. It was marked as the station's number. He would have to be called in for another assignment. He sighed dramatically and his hand holding the bagel he had been eating drooped as he answered the phone.

"This is Phil," he said with cream on his lips. 

"Phil," came Mac's voice from the other side of the phone,"We're gonna need you to come in."

Phil took another bite and spoke around his bagel,"What for? It's the weekend, I was gonna go see my kids."

Mac sighed,"Johnson is dead."

Phil stopped in his tracks and then swallowed the now mushy and less pleasure filling bagel,"You're sure?"

"Standing over her body right now," he said.

Phil looked between his bagel and the direction of home and the cursed softly,"I'll be there in ten."

He dropped his bagel in the trash and then flagged down a cab to get to Daisy Johnson's apartment. When he arrived at the apartment, the familiar red and blue lights of cop cars were flashing outside and neighbors were crowded around trying to hear and see snippets of what had happened. He flashed his badge at the flatfoot standing in front of the door and then made his way up the stairs to where more cops were milling in the hall and talking in hushed tones. Mac stood outside the door, his tie pulled loose and sipping a cup of powered coffee. He looked tired, and his gloves were still on as he pinched the bridge of his nose. 

"Mac. What's going on?"

Mac looked up, no hint of the friendly giant in his face as he looked at Coulson. He jerked his head towards her apartment and walked inside as Coulson followed. He stepped in and was greeted with the familiar sight of detectives at work. He had been in homicide a few years ago but transferred to detective and more importantly undercover missions, but still he was familiar on what to do and what not to do. He snapped on a pair of blue gloves as Mac walked in and handed his coffee to a new intern with a Scottish accent that Phil had only spoken to a few times. 

"Daisy Johnson, twenty-five years old employed at the NYPD and under you. She was shot and killed earlier today, the landlord was afraid to call us for a few hours and instead waited until the killers were long gone. He's a little sketchy himself, but I wouldn't try and push why he didn't call other than the reason of being 'afraid'; he's a little unhinged according to Simmons. Anyway, as best as the boys and I can figure she was murdered by some third party that knew what they were doing," Mac said.

"Any leads as to who?" Phil asked as he knelt down and looked closer at Daisy's already cold body and congealed blood in the carpet.

"That's why we called you here. Look, I know and Hill knows about your connection with The Avengers. Is there any possibility that these two are linked? Fury is willing to let this slide, but the Commissioner Ross isn't. He wants to take down The Avengers, he says they've been without discipline and supervision for far too long. He thinks they're a threat. I'd tell your boy to cool his jets for a while if I were you."

Phil stood up from his crouch and looked at Mac with his serious eyes but kind face,"You know as well as I do who did this. She was caught in his place as a mole, _unadvised_ and unwanted by both the department and myself. She was acting alone on this, I can't support her or her decisions whatever they were. I'll try and reach out to Barnes, I can't guarantee anything."

Mac nodded but spoke lower to him, off of the record,"Between you and me, our set up with The Avengers is the only reason as to why the NYPD even has a chance at being the law enforcement that it used to be. We're allowed to be here _because Barnes allows_ it. I'd hate for us to go under because Ross can't keep his damn mouth shut and kicks a wasps nest."

Phil nodded and turned to leave,"I know what you mean, Mac. I'll see what I can do."

Phil left the cluttered apartment and descended the stairs. He was hit with the cool wind and smell of New York sewer as he walked out of the apartment complex. A man in a black suit with shades on was standing just beside one of the cars and leaning on it with his arms crossed. Phil could tell he was looking at him from under the Ray Bands. He walked over to the man and scratched the back of his neck. A pearly smile was thrown his way. 

"Coolson, good to see you again. Step into my office," Stark said as he swung an arm around Phil's shoulders and ushered him into the car. 

He ducked inside and the car started to drive, Happy flicking a once over glance in the mirror and then driving off. Inside were Pepper and Natasha, Barnes was no where to be seen.

"Alright, so here's the deal my man. Mr. Barnes had a problem with your friend, and she got popped because hey that's what we do here. Anyway, don't cross us big guy," Tony said with another playboy smile.

Pepper rolled her eyes,"Mr. Coulson, please excuse Tony's rudeness. What he meant to say was that Ms. Johnson, as tragic as it is, was taken from us today. My condolences. Mr. Barnes is unable to meet you at the moment, be he sends his regards. He would also like you to know that your _business deal_ is still in effect and he hopes that you'll be accommodating and understanding after this time of loss."

Phil cleared his throat,"Yes, of course I understand. Would you tell Mr. Barnes that Daisy's venture outside our business deal was not solicited by the department whatsoever? We only want to keep the peace."

"Don't grovel, Coulson. It's unbecoming for a man like you," Natasha quipped.

Phil looked at her as she leaned forward and spoke to him again. 

"James took your guy out because she was blackmailing him. Pure and simple. Would have caused a shit storm if it hit the papers, and be glad that we took care of it before your people tried to stitch it together poorly. She was a liability we couldn't have, and if you were smart you wouldn't send in another kid like her again. I don't care about the circumstance, and I assure you that neither does James. Do your job and make sure you do it well," she snapped.

Phil nodded and then twiddled with his thumbs.

"Mr. Coulson, this is your stop," Happy said from the front seat.

Coulson nodded, but made no move to go and instead decided to part some wisdom.

"Ms. Potts, Tony, Ms. Romanov there is a situation that I need to let you in on. Commissioner Ross has been sniffing around your organization, he thinks that Daisy's death and you guys are linked. He wants to put you down. I would advise Mr. Barnes to lay low for a while until this blows over. Avoid suspicion. Keep the peace."

Tony smiled again, and with bitterness spoke again,"That's your job, old friend. Keepin' the peace. Protect and Serve is the motto. You deal with Ross, keep the letter of the law. It's what we pay you for. Now get out."

Phil cleared his throat and then got out of the car, pulling on his tie and then walking away.

"Phil," Natasha called once.

He turned back and walked to the window, leaning in to hear her better.

"Remember where your loyalties lie when this gets ugly. And take care of Ross, at all costs," she said.

The window then rolled up, leaving Phil enough time to snatch his fingers back before they were caught. The Avengers were a wasp nest that you didn't want to kick, and Phil knew that from experience when working in the homicide department for close to ten years. He walked into his apartment and slumped down at the formica table. 

A week later, and the wasps nest was kicked.

***

Fury sat in his office reviewing files and sipping from his decaf nonfat vanilla latte with three extra pumps of espresso – no foam – , when his office door burst open. His secretary bobbled in after the three people who pushed their way in.

"Sir! I tried to stop them, but they just slipped past me!" 

Fury held up a hand,"It's alright, I know these people unfortunately."

Bucky flashed a ruthless grin and then sat down in one of the chairs in front of Fury, propping his feet up on the desk and shifting around some paperweights and picture frames. Fury glowered at Bucky and started to pick his things back up, as the mob boss in front of him blew air out of his mouth and snapped his gum loudly. His little friends wandered around the office, Clint looking at the picture frames on the walls and Tony aimlessly walking back and forth while fiddling with his watch. Natasha was the only one who stared at him dead on, her eyes kind but her demeanor all business. Barnes continued to snap his gum. Snap. Pop. Pop. Snap. Pop.

"Is there something I can help you with, Barnes?" Fury snapped, irritated by the gum noises. 

Bucky smiled toothily again and then leaned into the desk like a slick salesman.

"Glad you asked old friend. I need your help, no strings attached and no questions asked." Bucky said.

Tony snorted,"That rhymed."

Clint rolled his eyes, and Natasha shot them both a glare. 

Fury made a noise that resembled a laugh,"And why should I do that?"

Bucky's eyes lost their warmth, and Fury felt a small tingle run down his spine. The kid still had fire. That was what he respected most from the Barnes family. He'd been friends with Barnes' old man, they'd run guns together to South America and back over the course of the eighties when they were just teenagers, and from there Bucky's father grew up and became the respected head of the Russian mob in America while Fury went to the Police Academy and became Captain (although he was gunning for Commissioner this next fall); only after having stayed with the family until the early 2000s. He had been there when Bucky's sister had been shot, he held himself responsible for not having done a more thorough security check and sacrificing his life for the young girl. He felt indebted to the Barnes family due to this, thus the reason why majority of the precincts he had pull with didn't arrest Russian mob members or meddle in their affairs.

"I'm not asking," Bucky said, voice low.

Fury stared at Bucky, lacing his fingers together as he did so, and then flicked his eyes to Natasha who subtly nodded her head. This was serious. 

"Well, I can't fly blind on this Barnes. What is it." Fury said, relenting a little.

Bucky smiled again, the edges showing more of a genuine rather than intimidating quality. 

"I need your help keeping the media off of my back and keeping fucking Ross away. I'm going after Hydra," Bucky said.

Fury's eyes bugged slightly and his jaw hardened.

"Hydra? Damn Barnes, I've heard some asinine things come out of that goddamned mouth of yours but this is by far the worst. Do you understand just _what_ that kind of shit is going to do to our city! No, you don't! Because it's my job to keep all you mother fucking mobsters in their own lanes goddamnit! Going after Hydra means war. And war means death. And that means civilians and a hell of a lot of other people you care about might wind up dead. Are you really willing to risk that for the sake of territory? It's a couple of blocks in downtown Queens, let it the fuck go! Need I remind you what happened the last time your dumb ass tired to start a war?" Fury snapped.

Bucky shot to his feet and knocked the trinkets of bobble head cats off of Fury's desk in his own rage. 

"Alexander Pierce stole something from me! He stole it from me, and I will be damned if I let him get away with it. I'm going after him with or without our support. I will cut the head off of Hydra and any more that come up as their goddamned slogan goes! They will not get away with this. This isn't about me, and it's not about you. It's about someone I care about." Bucky said, voice going breathy at the end as he was hit with an emotional brick.

Fury blinked at him and then scrubbed a hand down his face. If there was one thing he learned from his days in the Barnes mafia, it was that you did not fuck with things that were explicitly claimed by the boss.This meant people and it meant possessions of high value. But love, love was something no man touched. No man, mafia or not, harmed the love of another man unless he was looking to pick a fight. And if Pierce had really stollen someone this important to James Buchanan Barnes, they were going to pay because nothing was going to stop him from getting what was his back. Even Fury knew not to push that envelope too far. 

"Shit. What do you need from me then?" Fury said.

Natasha closed her eyes in a silent prayer behind Bucky, and Bucky sighed as he hung his head. 

"Thank you, Nick," he whispered.

Fury only nodded. He would do this for Bucky Barnes, one last time and then his days in the mafia were finally over. For old times sake, he'd do all he could to help Bucky Barnes retrieve the love of his life. 

***

"The body of Christ."

"The body of Christ."

"The body of Christ."

"Amen."

"The body of Christ."

Zola stood in the front of the alter, gold case in hand and thin wafers inside. They were thin and crinkly, sometimes he would eat them with cheese he had in the fridge for lunch. Disgusting really, they stuck to the roof of his mouth and between his teeth like gnats. Body of Christ his ass. 

"The Body of Christ."

Being a priest had its perks. He got to spread the word of God. The word of God that is on how the world should have been determined and how it is rampaged with heathens and adulterers all over the world! Oh Lord have mercy on these poor misguided souls! Lead them from the path of temptation, to defile their pure Aryan blood by giving into the sins of the flesh with the Jews and the colored. Lead them not down that dark path and instead lead them to the light! For children of God are pure and simple! He is all you need and He is all you shall have!! Can I get an Amen! Yes, his life as a priest was cushy and quaint. That was thanks to Alexander Pierce. He owed all he had to that glorious man. Schmidt had been able to recruit him immediately by giving him the one thing he had asked for in a time of lowliness. A little boy. As he said, being a priest had its advantages. 

"The body of Christ." 

So when Pierce called him up one night and explained the plan on how to kidnap Steve Rogers to goad Barnes into a fight and finally gain control of New York he was all in. He owed his life to Pierce and did as he was told. As such, he was expected to be protected and anonymous after the job was complete. 

"The body of Christ."

***

Schmidt loved women. He loved the curves of their body, the supple tenderness of their breasts, and the soft look of their faces as he tore them apart. He loved young virginal girls, much like a modern Dracula, and he loved to take them apart. They were harder to come by what with the whores he usually had every night, but rest assured he found them. He frequented a local bar called _The Chain Gang_ that was his absolute favorite. 

Now brothels were illegal in the United States, as was human trafficking, but that didn't stop him from his weekend indulgences. He'd walk into the bar that often smelled of bleach and Vodka, through the back double doors where the "staff" changed and then he was there. It was a beautiful sight. Three floors high each with twenty bedrooms on each floor, and girls as far as the eye could see. He stopped by every week to see the girls and see the newbies. Sometimes there were girls from California, Nevada, Mexico, Cairo, France, really all over. But what he loved most were thick bobble headed bleach blonds from off the coast of Florida where they knew how to have a good time in the sand. 

He paid as high as he needed to to get one of these girls. It was worth it, to see their faces as he slowly so slowly had sex with them. The way that their makeup smudged and ran down their cheeks only spurred him on. He loved to see the way they trembled when he so thoroughly got started up and he took their virginity. It was a sight to see and it was what he looked forward to. The room's equipment and toys were far more than what he needed. He liked to get dirty and he liked to get rough, and as such he needed the job that Pierce offered him after he pissed the establishment off one too many times by... _relieving_ them of three or four girls after he was done with them. His work with Pierce kept him out of a body bag and out of the papers. His work with Pierce was coveted, and he respected the man if not resented him for all the power he had and for how successful he was with it. So he waited his time and did the man's bidding, always in line and always watching. Always loyal to Hydra's values and Pierce's second.

"Have you any new girls today, Janet?" he drawled.

Janet's grim expression as she looked at him was all he needed, and then he was gone up the stairs to room thirteen twelve where his girl awaited him. Five hundred dollars an hour did not come cheap, and keeping the establishment happy was not either. Hail Hydra for how miraculous and efficient it worked.

***

Bucky sat at his desk looking at the files before him that Fury was able to scrounge up. Four names, four men, and four graves. Zola. Schmidt. Pierce. Rumlow. They were going to pay. 

The files that Bucky had in front of him were thin but thick with information. There were redacted pieces of paper, pages missing, and big black lines running across the page but it gave Bucky what he needed. 

It turned out that Pierce had spent majority of his child hood in a psyche ward for as his mother described "detached and cold personality" (to which a week later after their appointment with the shrink she was murdered in cold blood along with her husband and the man she had been having an affair with). He'd spent all the way up until he was fifteen in the hospital, and then reintegrated back into society when he showed improvement and became a razzle dazzle kind of man. He wound up in juvie two months later and remained there until he was eighteen. When he'd gotten out, he'd learned to do his jobs in the dark and always had air tight alibis until the Russian mafia picked him up and showed him what it was like to be a man. He had gained Bucky's father's trust after Fury stepped down from the position and became the new right hand man. He stayed by George's side until Bucky walked back into their lives. When he caught wind that Bucky was going to take control of the mob and that he himself would not, he betrayed the family and left to start his own gang out in the Bronx. He took a hand full of loyal family members and started his own empire who had been quiet until he tried to put a hit out on Bucky. Since then, relations between the self made don and the true born don of the Russian mob were all anyone cared about. Drugs and territory strifes were at an all time low as the city held its breath for the upcoming battle between mobs.

Zola was a little harder. The short chubby little butterball of a man was virtually clean on paper except for a few parking tickets and then the fact that he'd been arrested for experimenting with drugs on children after his trip back from Prague in the seventies and spent a stint homeless. He'd gotten off with a warning, but officially he was brought in for possession and intent to sell. There had been no follow up, and since he had turned to the church to repent for his sins and was currently a priest.

Schmidt on the other hand, had a violent past and a history of abuse. At a young age, he and his mother were subject to domestic abuse and therefore like a Rottweiler starved out and then taught to be loyal to its abuser he became just like his father. At twenty-three he committed his first real murder, instead of just on class pets and local animals, and got away with it. From there, it had escalated and he was not going to stop any time soon. He'd had a taste for blood and wanted more. At twenty-five his ex--and late--fiancée had put out a restraining order on him due to his violent nature and was court ordered to go to rehab for sex addiction. At twenty-nine he was released and integrated back into society. It didn't take and every year thirteen new girls were killed and raped. He was a modern Jack the Ripper. He got away with each and every murder, let off each time without anyone batting an eyelash. 

The story on Rumlow, Bucky already knew and it made his blood boil.

He was going to kill every last one of these men, saving Brock for last and making his death the slowest and most painful of them all. He was sure that Brock took his Steve, took him and was doing God knows what to him. If anything of Steve's state of mind and body were when he found him were any indication, then who knew what he was going to do now that Steve was back with him. 

"Bucky," Natasha called as she sat on his desk.

He looked at her and hummed.

"You're wearing yourself thin like this. It's been a week, something will come up. Get some rest," Natasha chided. 

Bucky scowled and then straightened his papers,"I have to find him Natasha. I have to."

Natasha kicked the papers in his hands, sending them into a flurry in the air. 

"Staring at the same pages isn't going to do any good. You're not just suddenly going to find some new information in there with a red arrow pointing to Here's Steve," she poked.

Bucky sighed and bent to pick them up,"I have to do something," he snapped.

"So sleep. Go rest. Something. Anything. Steve wouldn't let you be like this. Sure he'd be frightened, but he wouldn't let you stay in this state," she reasoned.

Bucky scrubbed his face,"I guess you're right. But Nat," he said, now starting to whimper,"I'm just so tired. I miss him so much. I...I can't go and sleep in that room without him in our bed. So small and tiny, everywhere. It still smells like him, I feel him everywhere. I can't go sleep in there." 

Natasha slipped off the table and took Bucky's face into her hands,"дорогой," she whispered,"It'll be alright, Sashenka, he'll be alright. He's waiting for you right now. We will find him. We will. We won't stop, no matter what. But rest, rest now and we'll continue in the morning."

Bucky tilted into her lithe body, crying like he did when they were kids and his parents died. He grabbed her middle and sobbed hard into her clothes, gripping her tightly and trying not to make too much noise. Natasha only combed her fingers through his hair and made soft cooing noises until he was limp and asleep against her chest. Only then did she dare to try and move him to his bedroom. She slipped into his bed with him like she did countless nights when they were children, and held him close as he trembled in his sleep. No one hurt family, this much she learned from her father. 

***

Peggy Carter was livid by the time she found out that Steve went missing, a _week_ later than the date of his disappearance.

"Are you shitting me!" she yelled clear across the cafe to which she Sam, Peter, and Bucky were sitting in. 

People looked and a few glared at her for using profane language. She glared right back until they all turned away.

"Peggy, calm down," Peter whispered as he tugged on her jumper.

Peggy sat back down in the booth with a dull thump and then rested her head against the linoleum counter top. She dry heaved a sob and then looked up.

"No, this cannot be happening. Not again. How could you let this happen?" she snapped.

Bucky looked at her sympathetically,"Believe me Ms. Carter, I'm doing everything in my power to get him back."

Peggy blinked a few tears away, only managing to let twins be birthed from her eyes and roll down her powdery cheeks. 

"It's not enough. It's not. He shouldn't have to go through this again. Not after everything that's happened to him. It's not _fair_ ," she whined.

Peter consoled her, tucking his head to the side in his shoulder and rubbing the tears away with his rough sleeve,"What can we do to help," he choked out.

Sam placed a steady hand on Peggy's hand on the table,"This isn't your fight. We wouldn't dream of getting you tangled up into this business."

Peggy snatched her hand back and rubbed her cheeks,"Bloody hell it's not our fight. He's our _friend_ and we're getting him back. This time we're getting him back. We're not going to stop looking for him. We aren't. Barnes, I'm going to hold this to you. If you don't find him, I will never forgive you. If you love him, you'll find him."

Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat,"I promise. We're going to do everything we can to find him. We will."

***

Bucky walked into the church and swept his eyes over the pulpit and the sparsely packed pews. There were boys around thirteen and twelve lighting candles about the church while others were scrubbing down the pews for regular cleanings. Bucky's shoes clacked against the marble as he came in and stopped in the mid aisle, he quietly closed the doors behind himself. A few of the boys looked up and said nothing, one of the older ones approached him.

“Sir?”

Bucky glanced at the kid,”Tell father Zola I would like to confess.”

Father, the word tasted like ash in his mouth.

The kid nodded once and walked away. Bucky watched him leave and then went to the confessional just off to the side of the main part of the building. It was a quaint box, the only humble thing he remembered being authentic when he started to go to church as a young child. He had spent many Sundays until his fifteenth birthday in this confessional. The small chair he would sit on was the same splintering wood and the screen hiding the priest was frayed and smelled of pine needles.

He closed the door behind himself and sat down, he felt his HK45 Tactical press into his ribs as he sat down, the silencer was in his other pocket. He waited for a few moments, the silence drawing his nerves out. He felt justified in his next actions he would take. He had discussed at length with Natasha, Tony, and Clint the plan for today. Natasha had been on board and Tony had been appalled until he learned the true nature of the “priest”, Clint was just along for the ride.

The door to the other side of the confessional opened and closed softly, bringing with it the scent of sardines and bleach. Bucky heard the weight of Zola's body contact with the plushier stool. A fat cat indeed.

“Bless me father, for I have sinned,” he said as he scrubbed the hair out of his eyes and felt the mechanics of his childhood take over,”It has been two weeks since my last confession.”

Zola remained silent, Bucky could hear the soft little pants from his mouth on the other side. He pinched his brow, that hot frustrated feeling growing inside his chest and throat.

“Father,” he said in a monotone voice,”I am going to commit the sin of wrath. I've thought about it since my last confession, and I see no other alternative.”

Zola sighed,”My child,”he said in that put upon voice that Bucky had come to loathe,”that is a sin not even God can forgive.”

“No, it's not,” Bucky mumbled,”but it's the right thing to do.”

“What's right and wrong isn't up to us, it is up to God. Only he can judge us.”

Bucky frowned at the floor,”Why can't we judge for ourselves? If someone has done evil to his neighbor, do we not have the right to take judgement into our own hands?”

“Only God is able to make those judgements. It is why he is the Almighty, our Creator.”

Bucky hummed,”But Father, have you never wanted to take matters into your own hands? Make it right?”

Zola paused for a moment, and when he spoke he sounded irritated,”I am a man of God. When God has decided that I can judge man for his misgivings, only then will I do his bidding. When God sends man to do his bidding, I will obey.”

The sneer in his voice was evident, Bucky smirked. He reached into his pocket and began to toy with the silencer in his hands.

“When man is sent to do His judgement you will obey?”

Zola nodded, Bucky could hear him do so on the other side of the partition.

“If God were to judge you through man, would you accept his word?”

“Of course,” Zola said immediately,”it is His Word.”

Bucky screwed his silencer on the gun and pointed it at the partition.

“His Word,” Bucky pondered.

“Yes, His Word.”

“So,” Bucky said as his finger tightened around the trigger,”you've decided then.”

“Pardon?”

Bucky pulled the trigger, and the wood between them splintered as the bullet passed through and into the meant of Zola's leg and love handle. Bucky took his distraction to reach through the thin complicated twine and grabbed Zola by the collar. The soft robes around him billowed and snagged as Bucky drug him through the wood. He pulled until Zola's enormous body spilled through to the other side. Bucky began to drag him by the collar and down on to the floor.

Zola howled with pain, cursing in the house of The Lord. He grabbed at his neck collar as Bucky dragged him, effectively being choked. Bucky's eyes were flat as he walked towards the altar. To his right, Tony had begun to weld the metals together while Thor knocked into the other wall of the church. Zola's chubby little eyes looked from side to side as his face turned red.

Clint sat on the podium, smoking his cigarette looking up in boredom as they had been waiting for a while. His leg was tilted while the other dangled, the heel of his shoe knocking into the wood every few seconds. Natasha leaned on one of the pews, sharpening her knives and not looking up. A few of Bucky's goons were guarding the door.

Bucky pulled Zola into the middle of the altar and dropped him in the center, he walked away. Zola paused for a few moments, scrambling to catch his breath before getting to his feet rather clumsily. He looked to the door where Bucky's men had their backs to them. Zola flicked his eyes between Clint and Bucky (who were having their own idle conversation) and the men at the door. He gulped and then began to grab his robes as though he was about to make a break for it.

“Don't,” Natasha said without looking up.

Zola looked at her, face turning red. _That bitch, that harlot_ he thought. He disregarded her and then made a mad dash for the doors and down the aisle. Natasha looked at the knife she was sharpening and then without missing a beat, turned around and casually turned to throw the knife at Zola. Her target fell to the ground and gasped, clutching at the knife in his back.

“It's not that deep,” she assured Bucky.

He scowled at the priest and went over to him, crouching down to his eye level and rubbing his jaw. He looked at Zola, turning his head to the side like a dog would cock one ear. Zola looked at him with fiery eyes.

“Wrath! The sin of wrath! You'll all go to hell for this. Abusing an innocent old man, a man of God!”

Mirth seeped into Bucky eyes and he laughed, he tilted his head back and laughed. It was cold and made shivers run up Clint's spine. The kind of terrifying horror that would turn a person on.

“A man of God? A man of God!” he laughed.

Zola looked at him, spit trailing out of his tight lips. Bucky abruptly stopped laughing.

“You are no man of God Armin Zola.”

Bucky grabbed Zola by the hair and pulled him up back to the altar where Clint was waiting with shackles. They tied Zola down and Bucky stepped back, looking at him. The knife was still lodged in his back. Tony's welding continued, and Thor brought over a small case of tools for Bucky.

Bucky placed them on the front pew and looked through them, feeling every bit like the Hollywood mob bosses he saw as a child on television. He smirked to himself. He selected a tool from his case and turned back around and began to set to work.

Through Zola's screams as Bucky tortured him by pulling teeth, removing fingernails, whipping, and degrading him Bucky could clearly make out Zola's confusion.

By the time Bucky was done with Zola, he was thoroughly covered in the man's blood and his own sweat. His white shirt was stained to hell and back, but Zola's robes were worse. They were covered in his own blood, both dried and fresh. It gave Bucky a warm feeling in his chest, he may have been a monster but this revenge wasn't just for him. It was for all the children Zola had used, broken, and killed.

He put the whip he was holding away in its bag and snapped for Thor to take them away. Thor dashed over and took them away, presumably to be cleaned until their next use. Bucky ran a bloodied hand through his hair and turned to face Tony.

“I think he's ready.”

Tony nodded grimly and rummaged in his work bag for what he was looking for. In the meantime, Bucky crouched down to Zola's level and looked at the sobbing mess of a man.

“Why? Why?” he moaned.

Bucky looked at him and grabbed the man's hand, pushing one of the bamboo sticks in further under the nail and grabbing one out that also pulled the nail up and off of his finger. Zola screamed and Bucky examined the bloody bamboo stick.

“I thought you would have figured it out.”

Zola looked up at him through tears, snot dripping down his nose and his chest heaving with sobs.

“I am the Word of God. I am your Maker. I am your End. The End.”

Zola hung his head and Bucky grabbed his hair, pulling it back so that his head was at a 90 degree angle. He came close to Zola's ear and began to whisper.

“My lover's blood is on your hands. I know what you did to him, for Pierce and for Rumlow. You make me sick, and I will sleep just fine at night knowing you got what you deserved. I'll sleep fine knowing that some perverted and sadistic child molester is off of the streets.”

Zola stiffened.

“It's not so secret any more, or at least it won't be. Not when the police find your body and discover all of the horrible things you've been doing to children for all of these years. You're a monster, and just know that you deserve this. Every last fucking moment of this hellacious torture, you earned. Maybe pray to God to save your soul, but he has long since abandoned you”

He shoved Zola's head down, and the man sat there quiet and broken. Tony walked up to Bucky and handed him the barbed wire and chain.

***

There was yellow police tape around the church, it had been Franciscan at one point. Fury knew it all too well, the police tape only reinforced a memory he hated reliving from the late nineties. He brushed the thought away and walked up the stairs, his long coat scraping the steps. It seemed as though he was walking back into the past, back into a world he promised himself he wouldn't enter again.

The door was just as heavy as it had been when he was here with the Barnes family, the Caravagio painting had been stripped off of the wall however and replaced with Vasily's _Apotheosi_ s _of War_. Fury shook his head and continued out of the foyer and passed the smaller walnut doors and into the main body of the church.

The sight he was greeted with was...shocking to say the least. He had told Barnes that he would sign off on all acts of violence, but his years with the NYPD had made him soft, made him forget the horrors of war. He was going to have a hard time explaining this one to Ross and still acting like he was looking for Bucky and trying to stop him.

The altar was untouched, save for the red splattered all about it, but above the altar. Above the altar – _fuck_ – the sight was sickening. Like some twisted revision of the crusification of christ, hung Zola. He hadn't been prepared for this, for the sheer fury that Barnes had inside of him. Deep down in Fury's soul, a little voice screamed at him _George would be proud_. Fury had to force himself to squash down the blossoming _pride_ in his chest and check his expression as he looked on at the murder scene (he had to remind himself that it was not _justice_ but rather a crime of passion). And passion it was, a scene that would make any sinner religious as long as he did not have to face the torment and agony that Zola no doubt felt.

The sides of the church had been busted in and out and the steel beams supporting the structure of the building were exposed. Welded on to them, with care and precision and no doubt orchestrated by some genius engineering mind, were large metal hooks with lengths of barnbed wire welded and wrapped around them. The barbed wire looked like it was done in a haste of anger. The barbed wire trailed from the hooks into the center of the altar where Zola's body was suspended like a cross. The man's arms were suspended out from his sides and pulled taught, no doubt pulling the shoulders out of their sockets (the autopsy would later report that his suspicions were confirmed). His legs were bound together by a length of barbed wire both under and over the white robes he wore, meant to dehumanize and further emphasize _pain_ was the primary goal. The robes were tarnished with fresh red blood and rusty droplets, suggesting that he had been bleeding for a while and healed enough for it to dry before being tortured again.

However, it was not the sadistic BDSM suspension like tying that killed Zola, it was the thick metal chain attached to the center beams in the ceiling to which he was hanging by the neck from. It was one hell of a show. The thinking, Fury knew immediately, that once he was suspended the pain from gravity and wire would be unbearable and painful on its own, but when hung by the neck would cause instinct to kick in. He would try and reach for his neck to get the chain off, but the wire would pull his arms back and cut deeper into his skin. Eventually, he would suffocate if the arteries in his wrists being punctured didn't kill him first.

Zola's head was thrown back into a scene of saint like ecstasy, looking upward towards heaven with a serene and bloated expression. His face was blue and his tongue was purple, his small round rimmed glasses were tucked firmly on his face and over his bulging eyes.

Fury wondered if his last thoughts were about God, because there was a 100% certainty that Zola was no man of God.

“Jesus fuck!” came a call from the back room.

Fury tore his eyes away from Zola's abused body and walked over to the side panel of the church where a hall led off into the back. There was a short hallway with two doors, one for a men's toilet and the other for the priest's quarters. Fury stepped inside the quaint room, it was humble with a small desk, lamp, fan, laptop, and Catholic iconography; but the interesting part was the tiny door in the corner on the north wall of the room. There was a note pinned to the wall: “Open me” it read with an arrow pointing to the door.

Fury crawled under the door and into the small space where his other detectives were. Looks could be deceiving, and deceiving they were. Splashed on the walls were compromising photos of children no older than ten in varying degrees of poses. The images were too sickening to describe, but would forever be branded in Fury's mind. One of his officers had thrown up in the corner of the room and the acrid smell fit the feeling of the bedroom. There was a small child sized cot in the corner of the room with various stains and shackles, Fury didn't need a DNA test to tell him that it was blood and semen (later the forensics report of the room would confirm this).

“Goddamned pervert,” one of the detectives said.

Fury nodded solemnly and left the room and walked out into the hall. He pinched his brow and stood there, trying to get a grasp on what he had witnessed. His pocket vibrated and he answered without thinking or checking the caller ID.

“What?” he snapped.

“Get my present?” Bucky asked coolly on the other line.

Fury whirled around and walked to the far side of the hallway where a stained glass window of Mother Mary looked down on him. Her gaze was disapproving, it enhanced the guilt and disgust he felt in his stomach.

“What the fuck was that, Barnes,” he whisper yelled into the phone.

“My fucking job. I took that fucker out, and I would've done it again.”

“He had jack to do with your petty revenge!”

Bucky scoffed,”The hell he didn't. I found his little love nest by accident when I was looking for the bathroom. Used to be my priest, I'd go to confession and pour my fucking soul out to some goddamned _child molester_ for absolution. He wasn't always right when we spoke, I didn't trust him, so I did some digging and I found his dirty little secret.”

Fury glared at the ground and turned to face the blank wall behind him,”Barnes-”

“Check out his apartment and you'll see what he has to do with Steve. You might want to obtain a warrant and call an ambulance, there are...complications at his residence.”

“Complications?” Fury demanded.

“Check it out as soon as you can, Pierce will likely be trying to cover this up any moment now if he hasn't already.”

And with that, the line went dead. Fury swore, and knew that if he tried to call him back the number would be disconnected.

“Fuck!” he shouted and started to leave the hall hastily.

He made it to the entrance of the pulpit when he heard shouting in the pews. He looked up, Ross, not a good sign. Ross looked up from the flatfoot he was yelling at and to Fury.

“Captain, what the fuck is going on here!”

Fury walked down the steps and to his superior.

“Sir, this is more complicated than it seems-”

“I don't want to hear your bullshit excuses. This has Barnes written all over it and you know it. His father did the same thing to the Irish in seventy-five because they tried to talk Winnifred Barnes out of marrying George Barnes. I know you've been talking to him. You need to _end_ this now before it gets worse. I want Barnes in handcuffs and charged with murder. I want that fucker caught.”

Fury's lips went into a thin line, he was doing a balancing act. Keep Barnes or Ross happy, which was the worse enemy to face?

“I'll do my best sir.”

Ross scoffed,”Do better than that, do your fucking job or else I'll find someone else who can.”

Fury nodded and then spoke again, softer,”I need to obtain a warrant for Zola's apartment, and I need it now.”

Ross raised an eyebrow,”What kind of game are you playing at?”

“I can't explain it right now, but if you check his quarters you'll be more apt to receive my request. This isn't just a murder for some unexplained reason.”

“Are you saying this is justified, somehow?” Ross shouted, a vein popping out of his neck.

Fury shook his head,”Whoever did this isn't above the law, but I think you'll feel differently if you just look.”

Ross stomped away from Fury and into the hall, he was gone a total of ten minutes before he rushed back into the main room.

“Call the fucking judge, do whatever you have to and get a goddamned warrant for this sick fuck's apartment.”

Ross looked at Fury, and Fury nodded before racing down the steps and into his car. He turned the siren on and sped down the crowded streets to the Bronx to Zola's apartment. He bounded up the stairs and forced his way inside the apartment and drew his gun. So far, Hydra agents hadn't made their way to Zola's apartment to clean up any sort of mess. Maybe Zola wasn't as high up in their ranks as Barnes thought.

The apartment was quiet, except for the sound of the radiator purring. He heard his blood rush in his ears as he checked behind corners and doors for whatever it was that Barnes had seen when he was here. He kicked in bedroom doors of the shanty apartment, and on the last one he found what Barnes had seen.

He kicked in Zola's bedroom door, shattering it to pieces and stepped inside. The carpet was matted and covered in stains, while the bed was neatly made and covered in fresh linens. Fury's stomach sank as he looked around the room, fearing he was missing something. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his heart began to pound. He heard a moan from the closet. Ice creeped into his veins as he walked over, he shifted his weight back and forth debating on opening the door. With one shaky hand he wiped his brow and then ripped the door open, pointing his gun directly at whatever was inside.

Inside the closet were two young boys no older than eight, trembling and covered in their own urine and vomit. Their mouths were gagged and their hands were tied to the reinforced steel bar inside the closet. They looked at him with hopefully wide eyes, one of then began to sob with relief. Fury quickly whipped his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911 and told them his name, rank, and location and to send an ambulance.

He re-holstered his gun and began to untie the kids. The more coherent one collapsed into his arms and started to weakly speak.

“Bathroom,” he whispered almost inaudibly.

Fury held the kid up and looked at him with wide eyes,”What?”

“Bathroom, check...bathroom,” the kid croaked.

Fury gently propped the kid up against the closet door and untied the other one. He got to his feet and went to the bathroom, dread filling his stomach. He opened the door and found two more children, one about twelve and the other ten. The younger girl was cuffed to the sink, and the older one was in the bathtub barely conscious and looking as though she might die at any moment. Her legs were badly bruised and he could see purpleish veins running through her translucent skin. The girl attached to the toilet looked at him with glassy eyes, the track marks on her arms suggested she had been drugged with something and from the amount of pock marks it had been multiple times.

“Jesus Christ.”

Fury knelt down beside the girl in the bathtub and took her pulse, she was barely alive. He heard the clamor of the EMTs out in the hall.

“In here! We're in here!” he called.

He heard the men usher into the apartment and Fury looked at the dying girl in his arms,”It's okay, help is here.”

She looked up at him, and Fury knew she wasn't really seeing him. She went limp in his arms in just a few seconds right as the EMTs got to the bathroom. Fury knew she had passed long before the EMT used the defibrillators (her time of death was pronounced fifteen minutes after he was pushed aside for the men to get to work).

Everything seemed to move slowly as he stumbled out of the apartment and out of the men's way. He scrubbed a hand over his face and looked out in the hall, tears welling in his eyes. He felt hopeless and lost, a stone sinking in his stomach as he looked at the faces of the neighbors attempting to get looks into the house of horrors he had just opened up.

The revenge Barnes was staking a claim against was way over his head and much more complicated than either one of them was prepared for. Fury collapsed into the floor and held his head in his hands and sobbed for the first time since Rebecca Barnes' death.

***

Bucky didn't feel like a monster, even as he sat there for two hours and watched Zola choke out. Even after the fifteen minutes it took for him to slip into unconsciousness and then death, he still hadn't left. He sat in the front pew looking up at the man and hating him. Hating everything and anything he ever stood for.

Bucky knew he was not innocent or pure, the Catholic in him knew that he would probably go to hell for the sins he committed. His relationship with God wasn't on the best of terms after his sister's death, and since his lover's disappearance he had turned back to the light for forgiveness, reassurance, guidance, _something_. However, he knew that killing a priest was a sin so deep that maybe not even God could forgive him. The guilt was overwhelming. He knew that the actions he took were right, were just. Leading Fury to come to the conclusion of finding out Zola's dastardly deeds was something that needed to be done. He felt no remorse in exposing him as the sex predator that he was and the evil scientist he was becoming.

But, despite this, the way he died was not by the hand of God. Bucky had taken matters into his own hands with self righteousness and with the pure motivation of _revenge_. Revenge. What a funny emotion, a _thing_ a _sin_ planted in man by the Devil himself to tempt them to Fall. Bucky had swallowed that pill a long time ago, long after the rhetoric of the Bible had left his heart. Yet, that didn't change the knowledge that he possessed that he knew he was going to hell. Going to hell for all of his sins, but this one rankled him to his core. Killing a priest was blasphemous, the television news anchors only confirmed this.

Right wing politicians in the New England area were calling for his head, for the cowardly assailant to face justice. Despite the allusions media outlets made towards his depraved nature, the church he belonged to nor the police station divulged information to support the hypothesis. Their bashing and ridicule made him feel guiltier. It was funny, a paradox of letting a self proclaimed man of God live or let the child predator and evil scientist die. Zola seemed like two sides of the same coin, and Bucky was the only one to have seen that it was stacked to land on one side.

He scrubbed his face, his hands smelled metallic and little flakes of red came off on his skin and his hair. He was damp in his armpits and small of his back. He looked down and saw the stains on his clothes, the stains of his sins. He sighed and began to peal out of them, dropping them into a heavy pile by the front of his door. He would take care of them later.

He walked in the moonlight through his dark bedroom and to the bathroom too big for one person. The lights were off in his whole room and the hall outside. Everything was quiet and not a single noise was heard, not even the city off in the distance or the wind. It was a quiet night. An unsettling night, restless like his soul.

He stepped into the bathroom, recoiling at the cold tile but trudging through nonetheless. He kept the door open, knowing that no one would dare breach his privacy and partially in the hopes that maybe his little blond minx would walk through the door like nothing happened. He would come in and comfort him, cradle his stubbled face and wipe away the grime, sweat, and tears on his somber face.

Bucky shook his head and turned the shower on. He had to push those thoughts from his mind, remind himself that he needed to not fall back into that hole that threatened to pull him in every morning he woke alone in his bed. He stepped into the lukewarm spray, the lavish rainfall shower head covering him from head to toe in water. Bucky stood there, motionless like a sniper waiting and thinking.

Time seemed to pass with no particular speed or reason, and by the time he noticed that time had passed he felt cold and his hands were pruny. His cheeks had heated up and he felt lightheaded, when he moved his hands they trembled slightly. His thoughts felt like cotton and jumbled. He had slipped in and out of moments like this after his sister died, losing time and finding himself in new places or situations without recollection. Standing motionless in an ever moving and changing world, a world changing while he was stuck in his head, a damp prison.

He washed quickly and efficiently and stepped out of the shower, his body dripping water all over the carpet. He walked into his bedroom and began to get dressed in his loose pajamas, he noticed that the clothes by his door were gone. Natasha must have come in to clean up the mess he had left behind, cleaned his room out of any reminders he may have had. Bucky padded over to his bed, looking at the cold sheets and the expanse of mattress. It was too big for him, too big.

He got to his knees and placed his hands on top of the mattress, looking up into the moonlit sky and frowning. Tears cascaded down his cheeks and onto his bare chest. He looked like a wild animal caught and captured, afraid of its captors. Not a sound was heard as he began to pray for the first time in years.

He prayed, moving his lips in inaudible whispers, the prayer a secret between him and God. His pitch changed as he continued on with his plea to God for his help and to save the one he truly loved. He prayed for hours, eyes becoming swollen and soft. The words a mantra in his mouth and becoming sounds. He began to pour his heart's desire out into the cosmos to beg and appeal to an entity listening to him.

By the time he had finished, his throat was sore from repressing sobs and for talking so long and so quickly. His knees hurt and ached, but it was comforting. Maybe God would take his small discomfort as a sign that he was truly devoted to this cause.

Bucky had prayed that night to save Steve from the evil of the world and return him to Bucky where he would be loved, safe, and cherished. He did not dare pray for himself, for his salvation. His soul was already too far gone for God to save from the pits of Hell.

***

Tony had to admit that the little blond had had quite an effect on him, and now that he was gone a little part of his chest was looser in a broken mechanical kind of way. Being at the house when he was summoned was nothing new or interesting, but after the little blondie had been kidnapped by the Big Bad Wolf (TM Tony Stark) things had been tense. He hadn't thought that one person's appearance or _disappearance_ would mean so much to him and least of all to Barnes.

For as long as he had known Barnes, and he had known him for a while now, the man was as ruthless as ever. He destroyed Obadiah Stane in one fell swoop, like a politician with a pen could undo years of progress on a whim, and crowned himself emperor of Queens and Brooklyn. Nothing could touch this guy. Hydra had come close and failed many times, but they were only a fly in Bucky's solarium where one of his Venus-flytraps would soon eat them up. Not even the Irish mob was bad enough to beat him, but then again since Bucky had shot off the fingers of Steven Strange not much was heard from them these days. Yet, it was the single presence of one little man – a boy really – that brought Bucky to his knees and the darkness dwelling inside Barnes that Tony had only seen once flashed through again.

Bucky's fowl mood made his job harder, he was actually having to work late and collaborate with Bruce on different ideas to fit Bucky's specs and also keep Stark Industries afloat and fund their side projects. However, Bucky's temper and fiscal responsibilities were a minor annoyance. What really shook Tony to the core was the knowledge that Steve, so tiny and precious that he had found in a closet, was back again in the grips of some _asshole_ who really needed to get fucking killed already (come on Barnes how long does it take?).

Tony chewed on his thumbnail, the crunching and wet squelching annoying his partner Bruce.

“Will you please stop,” Bruce huffed as he flipped through papers, medical files courtesy via Zola.

Tony snapped out of it and looked at his lover, frowning.

“I can't help being nervous.”

“What do _you_ have to be nervous about? It's not like you have any pressing concerns at the moment.”

“Excuse you, I might be a devilishly handsome and successful young man, but I still have feelings.”

Bruce sighed and sat his papers down on his glass desk, he leaned back in his roller chair while looking at Tony upside down. He had the cutest little frown when he was upset, but recently he had been looking haggard rather than annoyed or quizzical. Bruce frowned in turn. He sat up and faced Tony who was back to chewing on his fingernails.

“Love, what's the matter?” Bruce asked as he grabbed Tony's hand and brought it away from his mouth and into his own hand.

Tony let his hand be guided, but wouldn't meet Bruce's gaze.

“The kid, he's gone.”

Bruce's eyebrows knit together,”Yes, he is.”

Tony frowned even further,”He's _gone_ Bruce. And-and he's been kidnapped by some psycho freak! I mean do you-do you remember the _closet_ we found him in?! It was like some sex dungeon in _Pulp Fiction_ except the gimp didn't actually want to be there! It-it was completely barbaric, he was stripped of all autonomy and forced to be an object for that sick fuck's own pleasure! And I'm here, sitting in this posh room not doing a goddamned thing.”

Bruce placed a hand on Tony's face.

“Sweetheart, it will be okay. He'll be okay.”

Tony sneered,”Don't give me that bullshit, you and I both know that this means more to me than anything else. I feel so useless and so-so...”

Bruce nodded as Tony collapsed in on himself, hanging his head.

“You're not useless, you know,”Bruce said at last.

Tony scoffed, but waited for his answer.

“You're not,”Bruce repeated. He wished Pepper was there, she was better at handling Tony's emotions,”You have helped. You helped with Zola.”

“I helped murder a priest.”

“A pedophile,”Bruce corrected.

Tony was silent .

“Without you, I don't think that Bucky would have been able to pull off something so grand.”

Tony hummed.

“Besides, the asshole had it coming.”

Tony laughed wetly.

“I know it's hard. When we found him, it was...jarring to say the least. I saw that kid go from malnutrited to gaining actual weight. It eats me up inside to think about how much weight he must be losing now, and what other atrocities are happening to him.”

“I just need to know that what I'm doing – what we're doing is making a difference and that we'll actually find him soon.”

Bruce nodded,”We are. We wouldn't be here every night if we weren't doing something right.”

Tony nodded and leaned back in his chair, squeezing Bruce's hand.

“Pepper is better at this than you.”

Bruce made a face like he sucked on a lemon,”She is, isn't she?”

Tony smiled at his lover,”She is.”

Bruce knit his eyebrows together and Tony laughed, coming to hug his lover.

“Thank you Bruce. I needed that.”

Bruce hugged Tony back.

“What? Don't I get to get in on this action?” Pepper said as she walked into the room.

She sauntered over to the two boys and they welcomed her into their embrace. Her soft curves melted into Tony's small frame and Bruce's rough edges. Tony relaxed minutely, feeling at peace for the moment. For a moment his world was quiet and things were right, and if they weren't he was going to make them right.

He sighed and resolved to do all he could in his power to help find Steve Rogers and bring down the assholes responsible for the cruel and unusual punishments that he had faced and was facing at the moment.

***

Natasha didn't like Queens. She found it dull and dirty. She stepped out of the shiny black car she had one of their drivers drive her in and brushed her suit pants off. She was wearing business attire that was all curves and softness, pandering to the sexism that was mob politics. Her suit was pinstriped and a soft charcoal blue grey color with a white flowy blouse underneath that showed her lacy white bra. It did not however, expose the two guns she had hidden at her waist, the knife in her jacket pocket and the emergency gun holstered at her ankle where her Prada heals met the skin. She took her Vogue glasses off and brushed them to the top of her head, pushing back her red tresses and scowling at the building above her.

She scoffed, _typical Irish_ , she thought. She buttoned her blazer and ascended the concrete stairs. She buzzed the buzzer, and no answer came. It was a different house from the one she had been in a few years ago. She looked at its facade, covered in graffiti with two eviction notices stapled to the door. She shook her head, she had quite liked the yellow house in the countryside of New York. A shame they left it really.

She buzzed again, this time pressing her finger harder into the buzzer and longer so as to rouse the men inside. She knew that whoever was supposed to be watching Strange was doing a terrible job, but who could blame the Irish they had always been lazy. She waited a few more seconds before staccato pressing the doorbell until she heard slamming and shuffling inside. The door opened with a jerk and she was met with a familiar albeit older and tired face.

“What what?” came the Southie accent.

Natasha smiled wolfishly and took Strange in. It was her job to keep tabs on potential threats in New York against Bucky, Strange hadn't been on her list in years but she still liked to check in on him from time to time. She had seen PI photos of him and how he had let himself go, but never in person. He looked rough.

His face was greyish and pale, he was growing a beard but it was coming in patchy and looked more like a dirty shadow on his neck and chin. His neck was red like he had been sunburned, but was chaffed from something else instead or maybe it was just his complexion. The wife beater he wore was stained down the front and under the arms in a putrid green brown body fluid with darker brown and black mystery spots all over the front and back. His jeans were dirty and covered in soil with little rips and tears here or there. His hair was mussed up to one side like he had been asleep and just woke up in a hurry, but the grease in it suggested that it was just stuck like that from the last time he had slept and hadn't bothered to take a shower since. He had a cigarette in his mouth that hung loosely while he talked and a beer in the other, she noted the two stubs on his hands.

He frowned.

“Oh, it's you.”

He opened the door and walked inside the house. It was quaint, sweet but smaller than the house in the country. The decorations were similar to what they had been when she and Bucky had been there last. Christine was still with him despite his mood swings and constant irritability. She was a strong woman, they had been going to marriage counseling since five months after his accident had happened.

“Christine is out at the moment, if you're here to kill me make it look like an accident will ya'? And don't get blood on the carpet, she loves the carpet.”

Natasha walked into the living room, looking at the new photos on the wall of parties they had been to. The wallpaper was fading and a tacky baby blue color, the wood of the floor was not as nice as the one they used to have. The chairs were different too, the main carpet as well.

“I'm not here to kill you Steven.”

Steven scratched his neck and sat down hard on his plush armchair, opening another beer as he did so.

“That so?” he said as he kicked his bare feet up on the coffee table.

Natasha hummed in response. He was so cavalier as usual, no training whatsoever.

“So, what are ya' here for then? Don't got any money anymore, I don't have anything left to give.”

Natasha looked at him pointedly,”There's always something to give.”

He eyed her lazily, taking a swig of his beer. An IPA lager, the stiff hard kind. It had to have been his third or fourth if he was talking to her so brazenly.

“Always somethin'.”  
She walked away from him, looking around the room a little more.

“Four months,” she said, picking up a little chit from the side table in the room.

Strange scoffed,”Eh, four months. Nothing to celebrate, there'll be another four in no time soon.”

Natasha threw the chip down, there were several in the bowl. The highest one read a year, but there were many duplicates. Many months, more four month chips than any others. Many relapses.

“What does Christine have to say about this?”

“How would I know? She's at her mother's in Connecticut, said she needed to get away for a while before the baby comes. Gave me a choice.”

“I know,” Natasha said.

Steven laughed humorlessly,”You know, you know.”

She came to sit in the chair across from him, crossing one leg over the other and placing her hands on either side of the armchair.

“So tell me, if you're not here to kill me what are you here for then?”

Natasha looked at him, eyes cold and mirthless.

“I have a proposition for you.”

Strange scowled,”That only means trouble. Trouble is what I'm lookin' to avoid.”

Natasha picked up the picture frame next to her, it was a heavy pewter metal. She looked at the photo inside, it was a candid wedding shot of Christine and Strange walking down the aisle. The man in font of her did not look like the man in the photograph.

“I'm afraid trouble will always find you,” Natasha said as he dropped the frame on the table next to her.

Strange flinched, looking at the now dented table and cracked glass. Natasha sat back and readjusted her blazer, paying no mind to the frame next to her. Strange took a drink from his beer, smacking his lips afterwards and sitting back as well. He scrubbed a hand over his face and looked solemnly out the window where Natasha's driver was speaking to a group of boys gathered around the shiny new car. He looked back to her and then down to his hand and frowned.

“I have a proposition for you,” she began again,”it's still a work in progress and the outcome is dependent on your answer.”

“Well what is it then, hate this beating around the bush. Say what ya' mean!”

Natasha smiled at him,”I'm sure you know, and if you don't I trust you'll keep this between us, but James has had something stollen from him recently. You no doubt heard of the Priest in Brooklyn who was murdered two days ago.”

“Heard of it? It's all anyone can talk about. I go to the supermarket and the cashier and old ladies are all talkin' about it. It's a devilish act that, blasphemous.”

Natasha steeled her face and looked at him,”Blasphemous or not it had to be done. An eye for an eye. Take something from James and you pay the price,” she laughed and gestured to Strange,”but you know that first hand.” Her eyes twinkled at the pun and he rising blush on Strange's cheeks.

“That sonovabitch took my lively hood from me!” he burst out as he threw his beer to the side, it crashed against the china antique off to his right.

Natasha frowned in mock sympathy,”Poor you.”

Strange sneered,”Why I oughta. Had I two working hands I'da swiped that grin offa your face in no time.”

“But you don't. You're just a sad pathetic excuse of a man. An alcoholic and a deadbeat. To think, you had been this once powerful don and now you're this. A man on the verge of destroying himself, his marriage, and his child's future. You're nothing.”

Strange looked at her, the anger leaving his face and he collapsed back into his chair lifelessly.

“But, that can change,” Natasha said.

He looked at her, his eyes still dull and hopeless,”Change?”

“My proposition is that you honor our alliance. We have the motivation and the power to go after Hydra, but we need the numbers. You have that. Work with us and everyone will acknowledge the man you were and still are deep down.”

Strange's eyes got a familiar fire to them, she recognized the look as he sat forward suddenly sober. He licked his lips.

“We have the numbers, aye. But what's to stop me from using them against you to make my people acknowledge that I am the rightful heir?”

A shadow passed over Natasha's face,”We can give and take power to whoever we want. Don't think we don't know how faction-ized your family is. We know Sitwell and a few of your underlings are planning to overthrow you, the only reason they haven't is because they're too incompetent to make a move. They're like squabbling children playing a game much bigger than themselves.”

Strange scratched his stubble,”You have a point. Sitwell has been itching to get at me since your boss maimed me. I'm a sitting duck.”

Natasha rolled her eyes,”Your sharp shooter days aren't over yet, Strange. You just need to pull your head out of your ass and clean yourself up.”

He frowned,”Even if I wanted to help, I can't.”

Natasha shook her head,”If you won't help, we'll pick one of your lessers to succeed you. You might not be able to take care of your men without starting a civil war, but we can. Either let us take care of your problem or we can take care of you. Either way, we're getting what we want. It just depends on what you decide.”

Strange continued to scratch his beard,”If we're talking business, then I want more than just getting to live. I want something else.”

Natasha stood and re-buttoned her blazer,”I'm not here to discuss finer details, I'm here to get a yes or a no. Acknowledge our agreement or break the contract. Decide.”

She started to walk out, but as soon as she reached the foyer she turned to look back at Strange who started to light a cigarette.

“This offer expires at the end of the week.”

Strange looked over his shoulder and looked her up and down before turning back and fiddling with his lighter. He said nothing, and Natasha left. She walked out of the building and her driver shooed the kids away gruffly. They dispersed and went back to playing their game in the street. She got into the car and looked at the dilapidated town home. Strange had let his life fall into shambles, she was offering him a lifeline that would benefit them both. The only problem was that she was 60% confident that Strange would accept her offer and 40% sure he might start a war. They wouldn't be able to sustain two wars at once, she just hoped her intimidation and potential perks of their deal would be enough to keep him from playing his strength.

 _Fucking Irish_ , she thought as they began to drive away from the town houses and out of Queens. Her other problem was getting Bucky to agree to the alliance and whatever terms Strange had. She hadn't even told him she was visiting with the Irish mafia today.

***

When Bucky found out on Friday morning that there was a meeting with Steven Strange to discuss details about an alliance he never agreed too, it sealed the deal that his Friday was going to be shitty. The other factor that led him to believing said day was going to be shitty was Ross's announcement that a city wide manhunt was going to be launched for killing Zola. The commissioner had deemed that the act was “hanous and too violent to not be met with force” and “despite his perverse nature, this kind of violence would not stand”. It was going to make his business harder to conduct and they would have to make the next murder they were to commit look more like an accident and less like outright targeted revenge or a crime of passion.

He was sure he would be able to slip out of Ross's grip once if caught for his murder, but a second time would be harder to pull off. He would need to speak to Fury about what should be done for Ross to be in their favor and allow him to work. Politics was a dirty game he hated getting involved in, the push and pull of power wasn't something he enjoyed. His meeting was Strange was yet another political battle.

He crossed his arms, looking like a petulant child as he sat at the head of the table in Stark Industry's tower. The company had grown even larger and stronger since Tony took over, and now they were no longer limited to just advertising. With Tony's mind and knack for innovation, the company was involved in a broad range of national and global projects; all of which were at Bucky's disposal.

“No,” he said again.

Natasha huffed, shifting her weight to one foot and glaring at him,”We don't have a choice.”

“I don't care. I'm not siding with some Irish bastard who doesn't know his place.”

“Like it or not, we need his help. We don't have the numbers James.”

“We have force and intelligence, we don't need them.”

“Tricks and intimidation will only get you so far. Manpower is something we lack. Hydra outnumbers us two to one, with the Irish helping us we can outnumber them _three to one_.”

“And if he betrays us?”

“He won't,” she said.

“How do you know?”

“He won't,” she said firmer.

Bucky scowled.

“I don't like it.”

“But it needs to happen.”

He groaned,”What does he want in return.”

“That's why he's coming today.”

“So you left the boring work for me to do. Snuck off on your own and did the fun part, huh?”

Natasha shrugged and then smirked.

Tony looked up from his Rubix Cube (the third one he had solved that day after challenge Bruce to come up with a pattern he couldn't solve).”O to be a spy, where intimidation, murder, and pain are pastimes to be enjoyed.”

Natasha rolled her eyes but smiled fondly. Bucky suppressed a laugh.

“Alright then. But if he steps a single toe out of line, it's over. I want his entire line wiped out.”

“And how would we do that?” Natasha said while raising an eyebrow.

“We call the Feds.”

She laughed sharply,”The F B fucking I. You're rich. It'll destroy us all.”

Bucky shrugged,”If you can't win them all, what's the bother of even playing?”

Natasha shook her head, knowing Bucky was going to keep to his word. Bucky ran a hand through his hair and sat back in his chair.

“Bring everyone else in on your way out to pick him up. I want him watched like a hawk and tabs kept on his men and his wife during this entire 'alliance'.”

Natasha nodded and left the conference room. Bucky's underlings – his friends – filtered in after her. Bruce walked in, going over to Tony and balking at the cube. Tony beamed with glee.

A few minutes passed, and by then everyone had taken their positions around the room sitting at their assigned chairs and waiting for Strange to come up. When the doors finally opened, Natasha gave him a smirk and strode over to her seat to his left. Strange and four of his men walked in behind him and sat down opposite Bucky. Bucky's eye twitched and he looked back at Strange. He was no longer the picture of death Natasha had described.

He was clean shaven and showered, and dressed in a rented suit from a high end boutique. His eyes were clear and he looked like he hadn't touched a drop of tequila since Monday. Bucky looked him over, taking in the cheapness of his clothes but noting the commitment he had to this meeting and their merger. As he did his once over, his eyes lingered at Strange's hand and the obvious gun holster under his coat. He wouldn't be able to shoot Bucky all that well if he needed to anyway.

Bucky smirked and Strange looked down to where his gaze was, to his missing pointer fingers. Strange tightened his hands into fists and glared at Bucky.

“Something seems different about you Strange, I just can't put my finger on it,” Bucky said with amusement.

Strange barred his teeth, Tony sucked in a breath to keep from laughing while Bruce prayed Tony wouldn't lose it.

“Cut the shit,” Strange said.

Bucky chuckled softly,”Right to it then.”

Strange nodded, his fist still clenched.

“You accepted our offer,” Bucky said to him.

“I did,” Strange said.

Tony looked back and forth between them, the conversation was moving _glacially_ and it was like pulling teeth to see who would be the first to acknowledge their unusual situation.

Bucky looked at Strange, waiting for him to ask the next question. Strange sat there for a moment or two, the click of the clock all that was heard. He flexed and un-flexed his hand and licked his lip.

“I have conditions,” he said at last.

Anger flashed behind Bucky's eyes,”Do you?”

“I do.”

Tony facepalmed, when would the action start? Bruce kicked him under the table.

“What are they then?”

Strange licked his lips again,”I want Queens back.”

“No,” Bucky said harshly.

“No?”

“No,” he repeated.

“Now listen here-” Strange said, the Southie coming through harshly.

“No, you listen here. I called for this alliance, it's my show and I can turn you away if I need to. I know you need this more than I do, need this deal more than we do so that you can be the man you once were. Return to your glory days.”

Strange frowned back at him.

“I'm keeping Queens,” Bucky said.

“What am I supposed to do then? Return to Boston? Set up shop there? Leave my conquest behind?”

“Yes,” Bucky said,”Most of your constituents have left New York anyway, Queens is and was a losing battle from the start. The Irish don't belong here.”

Steven's face grew red,”Don't belong here? Don't belong here!”

“No,” Bucky shouted,”you don't!”

There was silence.

“Boston has and always will be your home. Take it back and rule it, maybe you'll figure out how to be a man again.”

Strange sputtered.

Bucky looked back at him hard. He had no intention of giving up Queens no matter what Strange said.

“If I can't have Queens, what can I have?”

“What do you want?” Bucky asked carefully.

“I want my life back,”Strange deadpanned.

“I can't give you something like that.”

“You can though,”Strange said urgently,”you can.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow,”I know Stark Industries is apart of SHIELD prosthesis, that they've been funding research into prosthetics that function like severed limbs. I want one...for my hands.”

Tony looked at Bruce with wide eyes and Bruce frowned in return. Bucky nodded and looked at him.

“So what? We give you prosthetics for fingers, fucking fingers, and you accept our deal.”

“Prosthetics and you take care of the rats in my family.”

Bucky nodded,”Tony,” he said,”is there any work that you know of being done with _finger_ prosthetics?”

Tony knit his eyebrows together,”No, they've been working with hands and arms mostly. I'm not sure how long the mechanics of fingers will work and how long that will take. It's a very specific request.”

“I want my life back, I want it back or else I back out,” Strange said firmly.

“I can't give you something I don't have!” Tony sqwaked.

Strange shook his head and smirked,”Then this meeting is over.”

Bucky frowned and looked at Tony with hard eyes, Tony knew what the meant look ' _find something to give him in place or you're dead_ '. Strange started to get up while Tony scrambled for words, an idea, when finally it came.

“W-wait!” he said, eyes moving back and forth as his idea came to fruition.

Strange quirked and eyebrow, half in and out of his seat.

“Wait,” Tony said with more composure,”SHIELD isn't working with prosthesis, but PW is something else we're funding at the moment. It's not even released to the military yet.”

“PW?”

“Prosthetic Weapons,” Tony clarified,”We've started testing it with hired mercenaries with missing limbs and hands. The modification of a pistol to become a hand weapon is easy, and crafting one for just a finger will work better if not easier than a whole gun. I'm heading the project, I can start working on it tonight. It's a simple modification really.”

“Prosthetic weapon,” Strange said as he sat back down in his seat,”No implants or nothing?”

“It's noninvasive, they would be pistols with prosthetic fingers attached to them, the skin on skin contact between your hand and your...erm, stubs would be all it needs to function properly. The guns would only work as guns and not prosthetics, it's a step in the right direction if what you want back is your livelihood.”

Strange nodded and thought for a moment, Bruce held his breath. Tony was offering the world to Strange, untested and new technology they had just started fiddling with.

A few moments passed before Strange spoke at last,”Alright, that will work.”

Tony breathed a sigh of relief and Bucky relaxed minutely.

“But I won't start until I get my prosthesis and when my guy is taken care of.”

Natasha stood and hefted a duffle-bag she had under the table on top of the table. She unzipped it and poured it out, gooey blood dripping on to the table and the severed head inside rolling out. It rolled down towards Strange and stopped closest to him, dead eyes and lolling tongue pointed right at him. It was Sitwell.

“That's already been taken care of,” she said. Bucky looked at her quickly, _damned fox_ he thought.

Strange looked up from the severed head to her and nodded, his face a little pale.

“Then you have a deal,” he said.

The two men stood and shook hands, knowing that their push and pull of power went both ways. For all intents and purposes they were equals, for now.

***

Fury was waiting in the commissioner's office downtown with his head hung low. He had taken an emotional beating over the past few days and was in for the joyous treat of having his head chewed off by Ross. Ross, to say the least, was displeased with his performance. After his press release on Friday, questions were beginning to circulate the tristate area on whether or not Ross was in control of his precincts or not. With Fury being his shining star captain in the 107th precinct, the burden fell to him. Ross said that the other captains were too incompetent to handle it, and their numbers weren't nearly as high. It built tension within the NYPD, but Fury could handle it. However, right now, no one wanted to be in his shoes.

He had been waiting forty-five minutes outside Ross's door in an uncomfortable green vinyl chair while his secretary, Darcy, was busy painting her nails and smacking on gum loudly. Every once in a while she would look up and say in that obnoxious Jersey action 'he'll be right with ya' in a moment'. Fury checked his watch, annoyed he had missed lunch and was just sitting here like some dog.

The door to Ross's office opened and he poked his head out,”Nick, glad to see you came.” As if he had a choice.

Fury stood and shook Ross's hand before walking inside. The man was a classic power mongering authoritarian, as evident by the chairs in the office. Ross's was large and imposing, while the two positioned in front of him were tiny like kindergartener's chairs. They just barely let one sit in one position, easy to squirm in and add to the intimidation factor Ross clearly wanted. He sat down in the hard chair while Ross moseyed about his room. He didn't scare Fury, Ross no doubt thought he was. If Fury had been on the straight and narrow growing up, he might have been intimidated. But since he hadn't, Ross's intimidation methods were no where near the horrors he had seen in South America or with the mob.

“I'm sure you saw my press release last night,” Ross said as he looked through the titles on his bookshelf.

“Yes sir, I did,” Fury said while looking straight ahead.

“So you know what kind of tactics we need to employ to catch this killer.”

“Yes, sir,” he said again.

Ross circled him and then finally went to sit behind his desk, Fury leveled him with a hard stare.

“So why in the goddamned have we not started working on my plan!”

Fury quirked an eyebrow,”Sir?”

“Jesus H. Do I need to spell everything out? Hold your hand?”

Fury frowned.

“Apparently I do. I want tabs and reports on all of our usual suspects, and I want an agent inside all of the most prominent mobs. I want someone undercover in the 'Avengers', those self righteous assholes. I know they did this!”

“Sir, an agent inside of the mob is a little out of our pay-grade.”

Ross scoffed,”What do you suggest we do then? Bring in the FBI and loose control of this operation?”

Fury shrugged, he didn't want that but he had to appear concerned.

“No, I don't think so. I won't have the feds crawling all over my city and my case. I want you to handle this personally.”

“You want me to send one of my men into the Russian mob so you can have tabs on whatever it is they're doing?”

Ross nodded,”Now you're using that brain of yours.”

Fury's eyebrow twitched, he hated this dick,”Sir, with all due respect I don't think we should get involved in the mob's business.”

“Are you saying this because you're being paid off by them? Are you a dirty cop Nick?”

Fury shook his head,”All I'm saying is that it looks like we might lose some men over something that could not be that big of a deal.”

It was though, they both knew that,”I don't care how many men we lose. I want the Avengers shut down! I want the mob erased from this town! If you don't do it, you're fired. Now get out.”

Fury sat there for a few moments and then stood to leave. He got to the door and turned just as he placed his hand on the knob,”Sir if Zola's death really was caused by the Avengers, that kind of display of power is more than just killing some priest. He's sending a message to someone. Sending a man in on the inside is meddling in affairs we shouldn't be apart of, a gang war could be starting and we're going to get caught in the middle.”

Fury opened the door and left, heard Ross let out a bark of profanity as he walked down the hall. Darcy didn't look up from her nail polish as she said,”Thank you come again.”

Fury knew that even though he told Ross the _logical_ thing to do, that he still wouldn't listen. The man was too righteous for his own good. He was beginning to become a problem, his rationality and the darkness he tucked away were beginning to war inside of him. His darkness ebbed at his sour mood telling him to _take care of_ Ross, but for now his rational mind quelled the anger with hope and logic.

Fury wondered to himself how long that would last before he was consumed by his angel or devil.

***

His lungs were burning and his feet were burning with the cold. It was February and the ground was still freezing cold, he hadn't had time to find shoes somewhere in the room he had been in. The buildings around him looked unfamiliar and were casting shadows all around him even in the middle of the day. It had been a while since he had been outside by himself, and the nausea of being alone in the big wide world ate at his stomach. But, he was close. Close to the designated spot that he had overheard his lover would be at.

When he had stumbled onto the subway, it was the first moment he had thought to himself that maybe he would pull this off. Get away and return to normal, well his new normal. The middle aged woman across from him on the subway had given him the stink eye, he didn't blame her. He looked a frightful mess. There was blood crusted in his hair, he no doubt smelled horribly, and he was dressed in nothing but black latex shorts and a harness used for BDSM suspension. He frowned at himself, he looked like a sub that escaped some S&M club and was playing a game.

Even now in the middle of the streets of Brooklyn, he stuck out like a sore thumb. He hoped that he would be able to make it to his destination before being captured. He was 80% sure he would make it there one time, perhaps it was this level of confidence (he would later think) that led to his mistake.

He was on Berry Street now, and all he had to do was run towards Broadway and he would be in the clear. He passed buildings and people of all shapes and sizes, not stopping to give his lungs the break they so desperately needed. He would stop when he got there.

His feet were beginning to ache and freeze, he was sure they might be frostbitten if he continued or much longer. He kept running, and at last he began to see the intersection ahead that signaled he was nearly there. He sobbed in relief and ran harder, distantly he was aware of a commotion behind him.

The red shape of Diner came into view and all Steve had to do was ascend the stairs and find Bucky. And find him he did. As he approached the squatty fire engine red building, he saw Bucky and another man sitting at a table through the middle window of the restaurant. Steve's eyes welled up with tears and he ran to the door, taking one step and then another up the stairs. His heart pounded and soared as he grabbed the handle of the door.

What would Bucky say? Would he think that Steve had left him? Would he miss him? Would he embrace him? All these thoughts were swimming through his mind as he began to turn the handle, when suddenly he felt large arms encircle his hips and yank him back. He was stunned for a moment, the paralyzation of his asthma and the sudden onslaught of motion keeping him from getting to Bucky. The building tumbled from view as he was stuffed into a car and into the blackness of his asthma attack.

His lungs constricted and no matter the amount of air he gulped into him, it wasn't enough. Fear crept into him that he might suffocate and die. Brock's face came into view as the car began to move. Steve clutched the cuff of his jacket and struggled to breathe.

“Shit,” Brock said as he pulled back from Steve and rummaged in his coat pocket.

Steve was still gasping and turning a little blue from the lack of oxygen just as Brock pulled the plastic object from his pocket. He pressed the mouth of it to Steve's lips, Steve jerked away. Brock forced him back on it and pressed the button at the top.

Steve breathed in the sweet tasting medication and calmed slightly as he felt his passageways open nearly immediately.

“That's it, breathe,” Brock said as he pet his hair.

Why had Brock saved him? Why not let him suffocate? Why was he still carrying Steve's asthma inhaler with him?

***

Clint was annoyed that he had to teach a bunch of “Plug Uglies” (he had just seen the movie Gangs of New York and hadn't shut up about it (much to Natasha's dismay)) how to use their guns, but he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Since Strange's untimely step down from grace, the Irish had fallen into disarray. Most of their crimes were petty and they were not the imposing threat they had been some odd years ago. Most of the Irish had resulted to petty thievery and home invasions, when they were at the top of their game Clint knew that they had been slinging dope and hashish on the streets in Queens and Boston. In the eighties, Strange's father had dealt meth and been more murderous than he was after Strange's birth. His birth was a few months after Bucky's, the families seemed to be competing since Winifred Barnes had married George Barnes.

Strange's father had tried to woo her back into his arms and when she wouldn't, he spent the majority of his life attempting to compete with her happiness, husband, and son. Clint smirked to himself, Strange was a decent man and well skilled but he was not the man that Bucky was. Clint always thought Strange was obnoxious and cocky, he had been ecstatic when Bucky had taken care of their Irish problem. Now that Strange had been knocked down a few pegs, Clint almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

“Alright you potato eaters,” Clint started as he paced back and forth in front of the gun range. He had a pair of yellow tinted glasses on (custom made by Tony (including the sleek Stark logo he boasted about for months on the side of the frame and the arms of the glasses)) and two guns holstered at his hip. His crossbow was tucked into the corner of the concrete room. There was a table positioned behind the ten or so men with glocks with varying millimeter ranges. Clint didn't want to break out, no pun intended, the big guns on these men just yet. _They probably can't handle more than a simple handgun,_ he thought,”Let's get started now, shall we?”

The men shifted from foot to foot in front of him. Clint pulled out his handgun from his holster and began to show the men how to take apart and clean the gun, a few of them looked off into space while only a hand full actually paid attention. Clint was in the middle of reassembling the handgun when one of the men interrupted him.

“When do we get to shoot things?” he asked in a thick Jersey accent.

Clint had lived in Jersey for a spell as he was growing up, before he met Barnes he had nearly been adopted by the Irish gang at twelve. His parents had died the following year and nothing held him in Jersey anymore, so off to New York he went to “make it big” and there he met Bucky and became his personal butler/caretaker/friend. He hated Jersey. He hated the greaseballs that crawled out of Jersey and only ever made it just to the edges of their towns. Most of these men, he guessed, had never been outside of Baltimore. What he hated more than the close-mindedness of Jersey and its...inhabitants was the accent. The accent, god the accent. Grating on the ears and rough around the edges, he much preferred the Southie accent Strange had stuck in his mouth at odd times. Why these men came from Jersey, he didn't know. He didn't think Strange still had pull in that hole of the North East.

Clint looked up at him, he looked like his name would be 'Fat Tony' or some other kitschy name. Clint finished putting together his gun, not breaking eye contact and not saying a word.

“Oh big man, all tough now is he?” continued the lug.

Clint rolled his eyes, his job was to teach not to create examples out of these men. He continued to show the men proper gun safety for the range before they got to 'shoot things' and how to load the gun (he really shouldn't have to explain to grown men how to load a gun).

“Yawn! This is boring, when can I shoot something?”

Clint clenched his jaw and continued on with the lesson. He was beginning to show them how to use the target mechanism to bring the target back and forth in the range when yet again, another interruption.

“Y'know, you're not my mammy. I don't need to listen to you, I can fire a gun on my own. I don't need lessons, I'm from Baltimore.”

“Yes, so I gathered,” Clint said as he pressed the button to send the target back further in the room,”and since you're such a Big Boy, why don't you show us just how hard you are?”  
The man smirked and walked up to Clint and reached for his gun. Clint pulled back and re-holstered his weapon. He stared down the man.

“What gives?”

“I said show us how big of a man you are. Stand there.”

He looked to where Clint pointed. He turned back,”Huh?”

“Go out there. Show us that you're a man.”

The man furrowed his brow and then jumped over the divider and landed down into the pit that was the shooting range. He started walking and stopped at the ten foot mark.

“This good enough for you?”  
Clint waved his hand at him,”Keep going.”

The man kept walking, mumbling to himself as he walked. When Clint was sure he was out of ear shot, he began to load the gun and talk to the men behind him, they exchanged looks as they listened.

“Now boys and girls, I'm going to teach you how to hit a moving target. The trick is to aim for where they're going to be. Now, when they aren't expecting it, like Big Man, they're an easy target. But, let's make it more interesting.”

Clint pointed the gun at the range and just a little past the left of Big Man's ear and fired, both hands locked firmly around the pistol. Big Man felt the rush of the air past his ear and the bullet's heat as it went past him. It planted squarely in the wall in front of him off to his left. He whipped back around, his mouth going dry and looked at Clint.

Clint grinned like a madman and fired again, this time hitting the top of Big Man's parka and causing the stuffing to pop out. Big man turned to run, but no man can out run a bullet. He ran off to the side in hopes of causing Clint to loose focus. Clint smirked.

He tutted,”Nah, I want you to go left,”he said as he fired on Big Man's right, causing him to veer left and away from the bullets. Soon enough Clint was having him dance back and forth between bullets until he was pinned against the back wall and against a target. He gulped and sweat poured down from his forehead.

Clint loaded a fresh magazine into the gun and then fired all of them at Big Man. He stood there terrified as the bullets landed in a halo around his head, one nicking him in the ear in the process. Clint stopped when the round was empty and looked back at his pathetic pupils.

“Any questions?”

No one said a word and shook their heads, in the background Big Man collapsed as he fainted.

“What a shame.”

Clint turned around and took the gun apart and placed it on the counter.

“Someone go get Big Man. The rest of you, time to show me what you've learned.”

The men scrambled to grab guns and pick stalls while Clint loomed over them. Had they been hardened criminals like Strange had once been, not one of them would have pissed their pants at Clint's macho act. He preened at his self praise and couldn't wait to tell Natasha how intimidating he was today.

***

“This is horse shit!” Schmidt screamed as he threw his cards down on the table and shoved at his chips.

Pierce looked up at him, unamused. Brock grit his teeth together and angrily reshuffled his cards.

“That demented bastard was fucked up, but goddamn he didn't deserve to go out like that. Fuck, I mean if a _priest_ can get killed that way and the authorities aren't doing shit about it then what the fuck can happen to us?”

Pierce threw down a card and grabbed another,”Raise two,”

Brock looked up from his cards and pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit it,”He has a point boss, if Zola can get whacked then where does that leave us?”

Pierce rolled his eyes,”Are either of you chuckle fucks going to stay in the game or am I just jerking myself off?”

Brock frowned,”I'll raise you.”

Schmidt looked between them, his bug eyes bloodshot and wilder than Brock had seen in a while. He was back on cocaine, he was sure of it. The paranoia was common in Schmidt, he was always cool and collected when he was shredding women to bits, but in reality he was just a nervous anxious wreck all of the time. The only thing he said that took the edge off was heroine, but Pierce said he'd cut his dick off if he ever touched the stuff again (Brock had seen it, this twenty year old kid was bleeding them dry of their opiates and since he liked to fuck Pierce over he would make sure that the kid wouldn't be able to fuck anyone else over again in a literal and metaphorical sense) and Schmidt was sober after that. He had tried weed, but he didn't like the swollen feeling of his eyes and the hyper aware panic right before the edge got too good, his heart was always in his throat and everything was too bright. Meth, he said, would fuck up his image (but for a skin head with snake tattoos all over his arms and legs, there wasn't much else to fuck up Brock thought) so he could never touch the stuff. So that left cocaine to “take the edge off”.

Schmidt palmed his face and smacked it down on the table hard, he was sweating,”This isn't the time to play games! We need action, we need war.”

“War war war, that's all you two ever think about. This one,” he said while nodding in Brock's direction,” only thinks with his dick. Started all this nonsense over a man any way, makes you think maybe he really is a faggot. Pussy I could understand starting a war for, but a man's ass? Not for me. You, you don't have any brains and you're dickless so it must be the drugs talking. You're too stupid to even conceive of war.”

Schmidt looked at him, jaw set, he looked as though he was considering going on a rampage right then and there,”The fuck did you just say to me? What the fuck did he just say to me, Brock?”

Brock said nothing and pressed his lips into a thin line. Pierce laughed,”You think that faggot is gonna take your side? You think he's gonna stand up against me? He just takes my shit, got bent a long time ago.”

Brock frowned and with his other hand his cigar was a crumbled mess of paper and tobacco. Schmidt looked from the cigar and back to Pierce.

“So what the fuck are we gonna do?”

Pierce finally looked up from his cards and threw them on the table, a royal flush, no wonder he bet two grand so easily.

“You're gonna do what he fuck I tell you to. And what I'm telling you two bitches is to lay low, just do your business and lay the fuck low! Got it?”

Schmidt licked his lips like a snake and sat back in his chair for a few seconds,”I don't like it.”

“Goddamnit! You don't have to like it. Didn't your mothers ever teach you that, huh? You don't have to like it, but you do have to take it. Think of me as your honorific mother,” he said with a toothy grin that stretched his red sun spotted skin wide,”except I won't kiss your boo-boos and tuck you into bed at night.”

The air was silent for a few moments before Pierce shoved his chair back and smacked the pile of chips in front of him down,”Get out, get the fuck out. You ruined our game.”

Neither of the men moved, a stubbornness was set in both of them.

“I said get the fuck out!” Pierce yelled.

Both men finally got to their feet, Brock grabbed his jacket and hat from the coat rack and Schmidt shrugged his parka on over his bare arms. They walked out of the building and into the chilly air of spring. Brock walked to the edge of the sidewalk where Schmidt followed him. Schmidt pulled out a vile and snorted the contents quickly, sighing with content and then rubbing his nose. Any decent cop could still see the powder on his cupids bow though.

Brock breathed in the chilly air while his partner bounced on his feet.

“Johann, I think it's time the King had an accident.”

“The fuck are you saying? Speak English, tired of these stupid riddles and shit. The fuck is with the both of you.”

Brock turned to him and crossed his arms,”I think we should take care of Pierce.”

“Isn't that what we're already doing? You're sucking his dick and I'm just waiting my turn.”

Brock rolled his eyes, really he hated this homophobic language. He may be an asshole, but he had feelings too!

“No you dumb ass. I'm saying let's kill him. He's had his fun for far too long. We need new blood leading Hydra.”

Schmidt turned to look at him,”Do you realize what you're saying here Pokemaster Brock? We could be shot just for entertaining this idea!” Schmidt whispered hastily.

Brock nodded,”I hear you, I do. But, I don't give a fuck. I've been under this man's thumb for far too long. I need out. I deserve something more.”

“And what about me? You get the glory of killing the octogenarian there, and I get what? To live in your shadow?”

“No, we can run this gang together. Think about it this way. We kill Pierce, I take his place – only in title – and together we can bring Barnes to his knees. The fucker is asking for it. Pierce won't sign off on this, he's biding his time, says he's playing fucking chess when this is more like poker. There's no greater plan or goal, it's just winner takes all. We kill Pierce, we get to have it all.”

“What exactly do I get if we win then? If we kill Pierce and get away with it, what then?”

“Not if, but when. I take his place as don, the family won't mind they're a bunch of backstabbing bastards any way, only loyal to Hydra's name; but you get territory to yourself. I'll give you Queens. You can set up as many shanty towns as you want there, go nuts.”

Schmidt thought for a moment and said nothing.

“What do you say Johann?”

Schmidt looked up at him and then laughed, it was like a howl,”You're one crazy bastard Brock. God help you, I'm in.”

Brock smiled,”Excellent.”

Schmidt laughed again and then bounced on his toes,”I'm gonna bounce, got me all excited now Rumlow. Gotta burn this energy off some how,” he said while making a crude gesture with his mouth and hand and grabbing his dick with the other while thrusting his hips forward.

“Alright, we'll talk tomorrow.”

Schmidt saluted him and then turned and jogged down the street towards _The Chain Gang_ to burn off his nervous energy for the night. Brock was going to have to clean his mess up tomorrow, but it was worth it to keep the crazy happy and on his side.

***

Fury was always under someone's thumb. As Ross's face turned purple and the vein in his neck (the one Fury named Larry) popped out for the fourth time during their “discussion”, the realization came to him. He was always under someone's thumb. This time, he was taking shit from Ross over the Irish mob. It was a new one, he'd have to add it to his list of Things Ross Gets Mad at Me for Today (this was number forty-two).

In the past weeks as February was here the Irish had crawled back into New York City. It had been petty thievery here and there in the Bronx and parts of Queens, but recently it had escalated. There was a flood of weed in the city and murders taking place against people with ties to the Russian mob. Ross was displeased. All he knew about the Irish was their strife with the Russians and the headache it caused the previous commissioner (hence why his time in office was so disorganized). He was afraid that now that the Irish were in town that it would fuck up the balance in the city yet again. As of now Ross was telling him to get his act together and either arrest Barnes for trumped up charges or put Steven Strange in jail to end the Irish problem (“were a problem in the 1800s and they're still a problem, damn potato eaters!” he had said).

“Yes sir I'll do my best,” Fury said.

Ross continued to yell at him for a few moments and then finally let him go. Fury looked at his cheap ass cereal box prize watch and sighed, he was late for his afternoon meeting. He rushed out of the building and down the steps. He hailed a cab and headed off to his destination.

By the time he got there a small line had formed and he grimly made his way to the squatty red diner.

“Reservation for Barnes?” he asked the hostess.

She smiled and then ushered him inside of the warm building, it was too damn cold to be outside. The hostess led him to the middle of the diner where Bucky sat, his hair combed back and in one of his thousand dollar suits. Fury was wearing his regular street clothes.

“Thank you Jane,” Bucky said as he squeezed Jane's hand.

“My pleasure sir,” she said with a small courtesy.

“Here, a little extra for your troubles. I know it's against policy and all, but you earned it,” he said with a wink as he handed her a fifty.

She blushed,”Sir, I-”

“Please, it's no trouble. Just keep up the good work, and treat that man Thor of yours well tonight with the extra cash.”

She smiled,”Thank you, sir,” and then she walked away.

Bucky looked at Fury and smiled, he let out a breathy laugh,”Keep the wives happy.”

Fury only made a humming noise in response.

“So Nick, how goes it?”

Fury sighed and rearranged the flatware on his side of the booth,”Same old shit, the daily grind.”

They both chuckled,”I know what you mean.”

Bucky looked out the window, outside some car pealed away and a crowd of people had gathered. Something had happened, but he didn't care what it was.

Fury looked at him, he could tell there was a lot on his young friend's mind. When he looked at Barnes he could see the small boy asking to be picked up by him and paraded around the office where his father worked. He could see the small boy shooting his gun for the first time and being so proud he hit the target on his first try. He could see the young teenager who became contempt for his father and anything he stood for. But most of all, he could see the man before him. Barnes had grown in to a decent man, he was murderous and callous, but he still had a good heart. He was, before he met Steve, teaming with life and arduous; but now he was sullen and vengeful. It reminded him of George Barnes after Bucky had run away all those years ago.

Bucky turned back to him and smiled, it didn't reach his eyes. Bucky reached for the menu and began to read through it.

“The lamb meatballs are delicious, you should get those,” Bucky said.

Fury peaked into his own menu, the prices were ridiculous and there was no way he was ordering anything over twelve dollars. He looked at the sides on the menu and decided on the marinated olives, that plus tip would keep his meal under budget.

Fury hummed,”Awfully expensive place, pretty pretentious if you ask me.”

Bucky laughed,”It is, isn't it? There's not a single place that hasn't been touched by gentrification in this city. They take something old and with character and turn it into something flashy and gouge the prices.”

Fury smirked,”And your work is more honest, is it?”

Bucky looked up at him quick,”I don't lie about what I do. I'm the only honest man in the city, I can promise you that.”

Fury chuckled to himself. Their waitress came over to take their orders shortly as she dropped off the glasses of ice water.

“When you're ready gentlemen.”

Bucky sat his menu down and handed it to her,”I'll do the lamb meatballs and he'll do the brick chicken.”

Fury looked at Bucky as the waitress scribbled their order and walked off to the kitchen.

“Barnes, I can't afford that.”

“It's on me, a gesture of good will. Besides, I know it's your favorite.”

Fury scowled at him, Bucky rolled his eyes back.

“I'm not some charity case,” Fury whispered.

“I know that. Can't I just pay for your meal? It's the least I can do now that you're helping me.”

“About that,” Fury said as he leaned forward,”you've put me in an awkward position.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes and looked at Fury,”Don't tell me you're getting cold feet, Nick.”

“I'm not, but you're making my job harder by going all gangster in the streets. Did you know the Irish have been wreaking havoc in your territory? There have been murders of several lucrative people I know you have connections to. That and your stunt with Zola has made Ross very anxious, I'm taking all the heat.”

Bucky nodded,”I know the Irish are here, I invited them.”

“Oh for god's sake, Barnes. You're going to stir a beehive with this nonsense.”

Bucky smiled,”Don't worry, Nick. Steven and I have an understanding, he won't cross me.”

“Uh huh, and why is that? You shot the man's fingers off, what makes you think he won't try to get retribution?”

“Because, his wife just had a new born and he won't do anything to jeopardize their lives. He knows I know where and how to get to him.”

“You wouldn't kill a mother and her child,” Fury said as he shook his head.

Bucky shrugged,”I'll do what it takes.”

Fury looked up at him, assessing his comment and his behavior. He seemed serious enough, but Fury knew him well enough to know that Barnes would never go through with it. It was against his moral code, but he could bluff well enough that Fury had creeping doubt that maybe he wasn't joking.

“And what else will it take? Will you see all of New York City in a ball of fire for revenge?”

Bucky slammed his hand down on the table, the silverware clattered and the people around them looked at them for a few moments.

“I'm not going to let Hydra trash get the fuck away with this.”

Fury nodded,”I can't keep protecting you Barnes. Ross is going to figure out I'm not doing my job and then we're going to be left in a bigger mess than what we're already in.”

“Is he going to bring the Feds in?”

“He doesn't want to, it's like this is some personal vendetta against you. He wants your head, but if you push him too far it can escalate to that point to where the FBI will have to step in.”

Bucky scoffed,”I'm not afraid of Ross's idle threats. He's a kid in the sandbox, I'm not worried about him.”

“You should be, dammit James didn't George teach you that? To be cautious of all opposing threats?”

Bucky looked at him and crossed his arms. He knew that Fury had a point, but he couldn't cower in fear because of Ross's temper tantrums.

Fury shook his head,”James this is going to get out of hand. Ross has already asked me to put a man on the inside to try and get to you. He expects me to catch you. I can't disobey an order from the commissioner, I have to send someone in and they have to report back to me.”

“Who do you trust?'

Fury scoffed,”Pardon?”

“Who do you trust? You trust someone enough to send them in don't you? You trust them to keep their mouth shut, but also do their job?”

Fury looked down at the table.

“Surely there's someone.”

“I may have an idea of someone. She's no nonsense, she's loyal, but she doesn't fuck around either.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” Bucky said.

“She's not as ruthless as Nat, but she's close.”

“Alright, I'll let you send someone in. But if I think she's going to betray us, this operation, she's out.”

Fury frowned,”She won't.”

Bucky nodded,”She better not.”

The waitress came to their table with their plates of food and sat them down at this moment.

“Is there anything else I can get you two?”

“No, thank you darling,” Bucky said to her.

She walked away and they began to eat their meals. They ate in silence for a few moments and then began to speak of baseball and catch up with one another. Soon enough, their meals were done and Bucky was signing the check. Fury stood to leave and thanked Bucky for the meal and said he would do what he could. He turned to leave, but Bucky stopped him on their way out.

“One more thing, Nick.”

Fury raised and eyebrow,”When this Ross problem becomes an issue, I trust you know what to do.”

Fury looked at him grimly.

“Before it becomes too much of a problem, I need you to decide which avenue to take. But for now, you have a good day and keep me informed on anything else I need to know.”

Bucky pushed past him and left the restaurant, a little black car out front was waiting for him. He turned back to the building and waved in Fury's direction before ducking in. Fury let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding and shook his head as he left the restaurant and began to walk back in the direction of his precinct.

He would need to choose a side soon, he just hoped that he wouldn't have to kill Ross and that maybe the man would shut up and leave Bucky be. But, he knew deep down that that wasn't going to be possible.

***

Christine walked into their apartment and sighed to herself. It was obvious that Steven had been drinking in her absence and hadn't been paying the bills on the apartment. However, the change in the apartment and her husband was new. It wasn't the hollow promises he had made before when he went to AA, but this time she felt maybe he did mean what he said when he was going to quit drinking and get his life together.

The apartment was cleaner and newer, her picture frame of their wedding was missing and in its place stood a wooden frame with plastic over the photo instead of glass. The china cabinet had a new scrape along the side of it and the air of expensive perfume was lingering in their living room and on her chair. Someone had been here. She knew that Steven wasn't capable of an affair and didn't fret that that was a possibility.

She cradled the little bundle in her arms and walked about the living room. Steven came in shortly after, freshly shaved and his skin pinker than it had been when she left. He was really trying. The cabinet that held their liquor was empty, also a new addition to their house.

Steven smiled at her softly and came closer, he placed his hands on her hips and tentatively leaned in for a kiss. He wasn't a perfect man, but she could forgive him this last time. He kissed her on the cheek and ducked back shyly and smiled down at the little child Christine held in her arms. She looked down at their baby and up at Steven and smiled, this would be his last chance and she was sure that this one was going to be the turn around that they both needed.

***

She looked gorgeous covered in liquid crimson, he always thought that they did. Seeing them like this always made his heart stutter and his loins catch fire. He moaned and pushed into her body again, his hips going flush with her pelvis. She cried and looked up at him with tear stained mascara and overly applied rouge.

“That's it,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes, they were brilliant green. He had always been a sucker for brunettes with green eyes and thin bodies. Even better was that she was a virgin and he had taken her for himself, the first and _only_ man to be with a beauty like her. Schmidt pulled back from his crouch over her and pulled her legs apart and began to piston his hips back and forth, she was going to need a little more lube. No matter, a little slice on her inner thigh would take care of that. He grabbed the small scalpel resting on the bed next to her waist and slit her for the seventh time on her right thigh and used the sickly sweet liquid to cover his member as he pulled out of her. She moaned behind the gag he had put in her mouth and new tears sprung to the surface.

“Shh, shh, it's alright. It'll be over soon.”

He plunged back and began his ministrations again. This continued for quite some time, the positions changing and the angle more and more punishing on her spine and neck. Her once beautiful pale skin was now marred with bruises and varying cuts that were bleeding from the pull on her skin or beginning to congeal until she was thrown violently around the bed or room. She felt her consciousness hanging by a thread, she had passed out twice before and woke to a violent beating each time. He had saved her face, but she was sure that she had internal bleeding somewhere and a broken rib or two. She didn't want to pass out into that blissful escape again for he would just be waiting for her when she woke up.

Schmidt groaned,”I'm close.”

She cried into her elbow as he pound into her from behind and soon he was spilling deep inside her cervix and pushing against her. She felt his softening member slide out of her and with it the “precious fluids” (as he called them). He smirked down at her and then crawled off of the bed and away from her. He shoved her down on the bed with one foot and she collapsed. They were always so boring after he had had his way with them. Like lifeless little dolls, he knew better than to expect them to want to play with him again.

He pulled her by the hips and flipped her over violently, she was covered in blood and his semen. He wrinkled his nose at the sight of her, she wasn't pretty anymore. Sullied by a man and no longer a pure woman, she would have to go.

He sighed and placed his hands around he throat. She shook her head from side to side and then began to cough as he applied pressure. Her face turned red and she began to claw and kick at him. He liked watching the shades of her skin change to purple and thought to himself _maybe I should try this next time, she seems to be enjoying it_. He grinned and looked down at her, her frightened green eyes looked back at him until the pupil began to dilate and finally stopped, fixed at a wide open black circle. He squeezed a little harder just for assurance and felt her neck snap between his hands. He pulled his hands off and then leaned in close to her and kissed her passionately.

“Bye bye,” he said before he stepped away from her body and showered off the disgusting feeling of blood and impurity form his skin. He sang in the shower loudly and took his time, relishing in the soaps and elixers in the bathroom. He washed his stubbling head with ease and rinsed off his nether regions without any care or speed. He stepped out of the steamy shower and went to the sink where his toothbrush, razor, and aftershave were. He wiped the mirror off and did a little jig before stopping to look at himself.

“Hey there, Jack,” he said to himself.

He bobbed his head back and forth to the music playing from the boom box at the edge of his toilet and then began to shave his face and head slowly and with care. He brushed his teeth quickly and flashed a terribly white smile at himself and then went into the bedroom and began to get dressed. He slipped his jeans on and the wifebeater he always wore before leaving the room and looking at the dead girl on his bed. He smirked and rolled his eyes.

“Always so dramatic.”

He closed the door softly behind him and then walked down the hall of the circular brothel. Women, who had been there a while, duked into rooms around him and out of his way. However, as he neared the stairs a redheaded woman and a sandy blond man were in the corner. He was kissing her neck and grabbing her breasts as Schmidt walked by. She on the other hand was holding him close to her and looked at him with her piercing green eyes. She didn't waver from his stare and watched him go. He looked over his shoulder as he went and caught a glimpse of her long legs and pink nipples. He turned then and bounded down the stairs and to the front desk.

“Midge,” he said,”I'd like to set an appointment with your redhead.”

She nodded grimly and then wrote something in a book. He rubbed his hands together and turned to face the coat closet and grab his things. He had never been with a redhead before, it would have to be spectacular and prefect. A one time chance to break someone so beautiful and defiant.

***

Maria walked up to the apartments in upper Manhattan, they were sleek and shiny and faced Central Park. She looked up and counted the floors one by one until she could just barely make out another floor near the curtain of fog near the top of the building. She hummed to herself and then walked into the building, the pudgy little doorman tried to intercept her, but the beefy blond man cut him off quickly enough.

“Ms. Hill?” he said in an adorable Norwegian accent.

“Yes?”

“Right this way,” he said. She looked him up and down, noting that his suit was far too nice to be general staff but too lowly to be someone of rank in the line of work she was about to enter. He guided her to a gilded elevator and together they stepped inside. He produced a small keycard and slipped it into the nearly invisible slot under the buttons for floors. A button at the top marked without a number lit up and they shot up, she felt like Charlie in the glass elevator about to break the glass ceiling. She knew that things were to be secretive if she was going to keep her cover, but this was excessive.

The doors opened and out they stepped into a post-modernist style apartment with white walls, grey appliances, and matching furniture. The artwork on the wall was suprematist, various red squares around the place and one simple black one. The paint was chipping all over, but it was in such pristine condition. Maria didn't know her art, but to her it looked like a very good copy of that one black square painting people raved about in Russia.

There was banging from the kitchen and the blond man led them around the corner and away from the elevator. There next to the stove, cutting vegetables was a petite redheaded woman. She had seen her before. Slumped at the bar was a sandy blond haired man swirling his toothpick in an empty martini glass with one pickled onion left on the skewer. He looked up at her, the bags under his eyes looked like heavy makeup people from an 80s rock band would wear. He dismissed her and laid his head back down on the table, the gun strapped to his side though let her know he was paying attention.

“Come in, come in, soup is almost done,” called the woman.

Maria came into the room and stood still, placing her hands behind her back in a military ease stance.

“I'm Maria, I'm here about--”

“We know why you're here,” said the sandy blond man, he gave her a hollow look.

“Help me dice these celery sticks?” called the red head.

Maria walked cautiously to the counter and picked up the other pairing knife left conspicuously on the counter. It was odd that such a strong woman would let another one in her kitchen with a weapon, both metaphorically and literally. Maria picked up the celery and began to chop it awkwardly, the red head diced her vegetables quickly and deposited them into the pot.

“From now on, you are Mila. My distant cousin from Siberia, you're just a simple country bumpkin looking to make it in the world. So, you came to the United States and are staying with me. I've given you a job at the local fish market and you lead a humble and _quiet_ life. On the counter, you'll find two sets of keys. One is to this apartment and the other is to a small room above the fish market where you will be living and doing your spying from. The cellphone on the counter is unmarked and has three numbers programmed into it. One is my number in case your cover gets blown, the other is Nick's, and the last is James'. Do not call James for any reason under any circumstances. If you do, that phone will be disconnected and the Potomac will have a new victim that fell off the bridge during an icy storm. Got it? However, that being said you can make one phone call to James. Just one, and I trust you'll know what call that will be about. The number on this phone and the number connected to his phone are single use and can't be used for tracking purposes. They don't exist. The small red wallet I bought you from a street vendor has two debit cards with $600 each on them and your state ID as well as a green card. The suitcase in the hall closet has the clothes you brought from Russia with you and to here. They have wires built inside of them that you can take back to your boss's boss. They will only be used at certain times during the moments when other members of the family are present. You will be instructed on certain nights on what to wear and how long you will be there. You will stay here tonight so that I can teach you the accent, some phrases in Russian, and so you can learn your back story. Tomorrow Thor will take you to the fish market to learn how to work hard like in the Motherland. Can you pass me the salt, please?”

Maria blinked at her and passed the salt,”I'll do my best ma'am, and I look forward to working _with_ you.”

There was a gleam in Natasha's eyes as she turned back to the stove.

“Celery,” she said as she stretched her hand out and waited for the cutting board to be placed into her hand.

Maria did as she was told, she was good at following orders.

***

Tony kicked his legs back and forth while sitting on the counter, he was overlooking the engineering for Strange's new guns. However, his kicking didn't help the technician, Danny, working on the sensitive AI.

“Sir, can you please stop kicking the table. I can't work like this."

“Ah, Daniel-san,” Tony chided in a faux Mr. Miyagi voice,”you must learn to be one with nature.”

The technician was red in the face as he tried to screw in the millimeter long screws. Tony was always a nuisance when it came to working with detailed devices. Danny sighed as Tony kept kicking his legs back and forth, he was his boss after all. He had been so charmed by the sweet sweet benefits package that he completely glossed over Tony's annoying personality. How his constant barrage of dates put up with him, Danny never knew. But, the tall blond Pepper and the brunette Bruce had put up with him and kept coming back to sleep with him so Danny figured he must be good in bed (he still wasn't sure if one or the other knew he was seeing them at the same time, but he didn't pry).

The glass doors wordlessly slid open, and Tony's AI, Jarvis, announced (like in a royal court) the arrival of Steven Strange. Danny looked up from his work and eyed the man and his lone follower. He must be some amputee that Tony was helping.

“Steve-o,” Tony called as he hopped off of the desk, it caused the lamp Danny was working under to smash into his face.

Strange scowled, but shook Tony's hand.

“Stark,” Strange said with no humor.

Tony's small smile wavered, but he pasted it on with more severity and pressed on. He led Strange to Danny's desk where the first gun he had put together was located and to which Danny was referencing. Stark picked up the gun and handed it to Strange. The gun was a sleek chrome design that used energy matter instead of bullets and when placed in his hand the skin on skin contact with the chrome pointer finger charged the gun. There was a few second delay before the next bullet was charged, but not enough to be noticeable.

Strange looked down at the gun and watched as the finger turned from chrome to a seamless replication of his skin. It really looked like he had five fingers instead of four and a stub. Strange was in awe and turned the gun around. He tested the movement of the gun and flexed his nub, and to his surprise the finger moved with him and touch sensation was accurate. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“This is remarkable,” he said.

Tony looked smug,”I know.”

Danny rolled his eyes.

“You can test it out,” Tony said as a small target was wheeled into the room.

Tony stood back slightly and watched as Strange gathered the courage to shoot his first gun in five years. He looked at his hands and then blew out a breath and aimed the gun, cupping the hilt with his free hand and looked down the barrel and to the target. The world seemed to melt away and only the target remained. He blew out a breath and pulled the trigger. The matter compressed bullet sent a shock through the air and barely had any recoil on the gun itself.

Strange watched as the blue tinted bullet planted itself in the glass wall next to the target and just an inch off from even making contact. He frowned and lowered the gun.

“You'll need some more practice, it's been a while,” Tony said as he gingerly took the gun from Strange and handed it back to Danny,”Don't feel too bad. It's been a few years, you're a little rusty.”

“I should't _be_ rusty,” Strange spat.

Tony shrugged,”I'm sure it'll come back to you. It's like riding a bike.”

Strange crossed his arms and frowned at Tony. Tony ignored his look and began to babble on about the guns new specification, how to use it, and how to clean it. Strange was listening, but stewed in his own silence. He hated Barnes with a passion for taking away his one purpose in life, but a tiny part of him was hopeful that he would get back on his feet and maybe that hope would replace years of self loathing and anger.

“Got it?” Tony said as he picked up and apple and began to munch on it,”Danny will have the twin to this done by Wednesday.”

“ _Boss_ ,” Danny protested,”it's Monday. I can't have this done for another week!”

Tony patted him on the shoulder,”Well junior, looked like your nights have just freed up. It'll be done by Wednesday, Steven.”

Danny hung his head in defeat and for the one millionth time this week cursed the man who put Stark in charge of his life.

***

The poker game was going smoothly. Rumlow had a full house, he thought it was poetic that he was about to win his first card game against Pierce, _and_ the crown. He smiled to himself and threw in a few chips. Pierce eyed him and laid his cards flat on the table.

“I fold,” he said.

 _Typical, old man knows he's been beat. He'll see. He'll be begging for mercy in no time._ He thought to himself.

Schmidt looked at him and called his bluff,”I'm staying in!”

“Idiot,” Pierce muttered,”he's been smiling at his cards all night. He has a good hand. He's not good at hiding them.”

Schmidt scratched his chin but raised to the bet any way. Rumlow placed his cards down on the table and watched as Schmidt had an aneurism. He collected the bounty for himself and sat back in his chair. He reached for his scotch and took a drink. Pierce reached for his own and downed the entire thing quickly. Rumlow grinned. He had been waiting all night for Pierce to drink. His plan was to be as annoying as possible that it would drive the older man to drink his malted liquor. It was his one weakness, and Rumlow wasn't above exploiting it.

The poison he had slipped in at the beginning of their game was fast acting. Within ten minutes, Pierce would be foaming from the mouth and rolling around on the ground in agony. Rumlow sighed to himself and smiled.

“What are you so happy about, faggot?” Pierce said as he poured himself another drink. Rumlow had poisoned the entire bottle just in case.

“Nothing,” Rumlow said with a frown.

“There's something. You're hiding something.”

“He's not, boss,” Schmidt said as he picked as his nails.

Pierce looked at him,”Now I know he is. What shit did you two pull?”

Schmidt looked up with fear circling his eyes,”Honest boss, we did nothin'.”

Pierce slammed the malted liquor down and it spilled on the table, the acrid scent would be stuck in their felt table for weeks.

“Like guilty children, you can't be left alone without causing trouble.”

Rumlow sighed and pinched his brow,”Boss, just leave it alone.”

“I don't take orders from you, do I?” Pierce spat as he drank another glass.

That much poison build up couldn't be good, it would kill him faster Rumlow hoped.

“No,” Rumlow ground out.

“Pieces of shit, I ought to,” he stopped and coughed,”I ought to gut-gut,”he erupted into another coughing fit.

“Is it happening?” Schmidt said as he bounced in his chair with a gleeful grin.

“Shut up,” Rumlow snapped.

Pierce kept coughing and blood was splattering on the red felt table and the front of his pressed white shirt.

“What is this?” he choked out.

His face was turning red and the veins in his neck were popping out and straining. By now, his airways were constricting and his lungs were beginning to slough off. Rumlow stood and kicked at Pierce's chair and watched as the older man stumbled to the ground and gripped his neck tightly.

“Finally, after _years_ of waiting, I got you. I'm no longer under your thumb.”

Pierce looked at him, his eyes were beginning to turn red from bursted blood vessels. Rumlow picked up the empty tumbler and looked at it and then Pierce.

“It's poisoned, got it from a Chinese vendor last month. I've been waiting to use it on you. It took care of some orientals really good after I used it on them. Didn't even taste it in their tea. The affects are devastating. If it doesn't kill you, your collapsing lungs will. But, you drank enough of that so I don't have to worry.”

Pierce choked, gurgling his lungs as he tried to speak,”Bastard.”

Rumlow threw the glass at him,”Your words can't hurt me anymore.”

Pierce choked out a small laugh and it began to grow between the slurping noises,”You fool,” he said as he gasped in air,”you coward.”

Rumlow picked Pierce up by the collar and raised a fist to the dying man.

“Coward? Coward!? It takes guts to kill you! I've planned this for years! Don't call me a coward.”

Pierce smiled, it was bright and red,”A real man wouldn't have to sneak around, only a fairy does that.” Pierce cackled and soon the laughter died off as Pierce went limp in Rumlows grip. Even at the end of his life, Rumlow was left feeling inadequate and dissatisfied because of what Pierce had said to him.

***

The fish market smelled disgusting. The frigid air of spring turning into summer was beginning to turn moist and sour. The air from the river was pushing up warm gusts of air and causing the smell of fish guts to linger. She wrinkled her nose as she wrapped the dead warm fish in paper and handed it to a small elderly man.

“Thank you,” he said.

She waved at him and on he went. She hadn't been given any significant information she could run to Ross like he told her to, but Natasha had given her some time to let them bust insignificant followers dealing heroin. It sated Ross for the moment and he crawled out of Fury's ass just a little bit. Fury now, was able to run interference for Barnes with a longer leash than he previously had. She didn't know what her mentor was planning yet, but she was sure that it was something big if he was being this secretive even with her.

People walked by and occasionally children would run past the stands or poke the fish eyes until she shooed them away. Her coworker (more like invisible shadow that would report to Natasha about her) was pleasant to work with and as they worked together for a few weeks she began to grow accustomed to his booming voice and quiet demeanor sometimes. When it was just the two of them working and he didn't have to serve as a goon, he was soft and gentle. He seemed to enjoy working at the fish market as his actual profession. Maria admired him for that.

“Fresh fish! Fresh fish! Fresh fish!” She called out into the market.

They were running a special, buy one get one free on all sea fish from their morning harvest. It had drawn a crowd early in the morning, but as usual business began to decline as the sun came out and the smell became more prominent. Maria sighed and rested her head on her hand as she sat there and waited for another customer to come by.

“I'm going to check the truck to see if we have any more ahi tuna,” Thor said.

“Let me help you,” she said.

“Someone has to man the store, can't have any missing product,” Thor said as he left and walked to the back of the street and into an alley where the delivery truck would be. Maria sighed and slumped once again. Two people approached in her periphery and she sat there, probably just some teenagers wanting to poke at the fish again. She ignored them.

“--I'm just saying, we need to work together.”

“How can we work together? You murdered your predecessor!”

“Shhh!” the other one hissed,”Not so loud.”

Maria looked up and at the two men in front of her. One of them was a darker skinned man with short spikey black hair and the other was unmistakabley the commissioner. The two men glanced at her and Ross screwed his face up and pointed at three fish in no particular order.

“Get moving,” he snapped at her. He obviously didn't recognize her or else he wouldn't have ordered her around like that. Then again, maybe she was supposed to hear this conversation.

“Listen,” I can help you with your Barnes problem. I know you're putting together a file on him, but you and I both know that the evidence is circumstantial at best.”

Ross frowned. Maria took her time and gathered the fish slowly at the edge of the frozen cases, she tried to soak in as much information as possible.

“I have been looking for more information on him,” Ross mused.

“And I can provide that,” the other man said as he placed a hand on Ross's shoulder.

Ross scoffed and shrugged him off,”Don't get too chummy, Brock. I know your kind.”

Brock bristled and placed his hands on his hips,”Look, I'm trying to be civil! We can help each other.”

“Oh yeah? And if I say yes, what happens then?”

Brock grinned,”I give you the information you want and you take care of Barnes for me. Throw him in jail, or whatever it is you do. The point is, we _both_ benefit from his arrangement.”

Ross scowled and thought for a moment,”You won't screw me over?”

Maria rolled her eyes, even to her without knowing who this mystery man was she knew that he was going to screw him over. She knew Ross was a fool, but she didn't know he was this big of one.

“Not at all, sir,” Brock said as he rocked back and forth on his toes.

“Very well, but there's one more thing. If you happen to be in Brooklyn at any point and pass this address, I need you to take care of someone for me. I can't believe I'm even asking this, but it needs to be done. I know he's a mole, he's not loyal to me.”

“Nick Fury?” Brock said as he took the card with the address written on it.

Maria faltered and dropped the clams she was grabbing for them and they clattered in the streets.

“Tch, can't you go any faster? Fucking immigrants,” Ross spat as he crossed his arms.

Maria bent to pick the clams up and frowned before rising again and bowing twice,”Please to sorry,” she said in broken English and a thick Russian accent.

Ross rolled his eyes and Brock kicked the last clam away from her. She side stepped the two of them and retrieved the escaped clam. She had missed a portion of their conversation, but hoped that maybe she could still piece together what was happening.

“So it's settled then? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours?” Brock said as he out stretched his hand.

Maria began to quickly wrap their parcel and tie it with twine as Ross shook the oily man's hand.

“It's a deal,” he said. He then turned to Maria and snapped his fingers quickly,”Come on, come on. I haven't got all day.”

She handed him the parcel and he rolled his eyes at her and threw the cash and loose change he had at her. It fell into a mud puddle beneath her feet and she stooped to pick it up as the two men walked away. She caught a glimpse as Ross threw the parcel into a near by trashcan and kept walking with Brock and talking with him.

Thor returned soon enough and smiled at her.

“How'd it go, while I was gone?” he asked.

She stared after them and crushed the money in her hands.

“I have to make a phone call,” she said.

***

The place smelled like piss. The beds were filled with straw she was pretty sure and there were used condoms stuck under the bed. Clint lounged on the bed and watched as Natasha went through the particle board closet filled with skimpy lingerie.

“Am I supposed to wear this all day?” she said as she picked up a lacy red and white teddy set.

Clint eyed it and then her,”Dunno, but it matches your hair.”

She rolled her eyes and rooted through the rest of the clothes. The corner of the closet was covered in a crusty white stain. She wrinkled her nose,”Twenty-five,” she said aloud.

Clint scribbled down a tally in his notebook. So far it was twenty-five to knot on the places sex had happened in this room.

“Kinky,” he said.

She closed the closet and then went to sit by him,”This lead better be worth it if I'm going to stay here.”

Clint sat up and smoothed her hair back,”Don't worry, I'm sure it will. Besides, it kinda gets you in the mood doesn't it?”

Natasha glared at him,”What does?”

“You know, the room, the clothes. It's a wet dream, a fantasy of mine actually-”

A loud moan from the room next door interrupted his thoughts. Natasha looked back at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Never mind,” he said quickly as he shuffled off of the bed and waddled into the bathroom like a kicked puppy.

Natasha watched him go, irked that he was making light of her situation. As the door to the bathroom closed, a knock at her bedroom door came. A few seconds later and the door opened. The Mother (as the girls called her, her real name was Teressa) walked in in a modest robe like outfit and approached her.

“My child,” she said as though she believed she were honorable,”I have some news.”

She only looked at The Mother.

“We have a very important client coming to see you in a week. His name is Johann and he is to be treated with the utmost respect. He won't be like other clients, but it is your duty to be accommodating to his every whim.”

Natasha nodded, The Mother looked sad. If Natasha didn't know who Johann was, she might be fooled into thinking she would earn a large commission off of her time with him. The Mother looked at her one final time and then exited the room. Natasha watched as she softly closed the door. The bathroom door opened and Clint stepped out.

“So, is our guest intrigued?”

She nodded,”I have a date on Wednesday, next week.”

***

Bucky picked up his cellphone, the number was marked as Unknown. He answered carefully and waited for the person on the other line to speak.

“Is this James B-”

“This is he. This is Mila, I presume.

“Erm, yes,” she said as though she was debating on whether or not to say her real name.

“I suppose you have something good to tell me then?”

“Well, I wouldn't use the word good. More like terrible and horrible and needs to be stopped as soon as possible or else-”

“Mila,” he interrupted,”out with it.”

She took a deep breath,”Commissioner Ross met with a man today named Brock in front of the fish market stand, I know neither of them knew who I was. Thor wasn't with me so I assume that they thought I was just some merchant. He made a deal with Brock to put it a hit out on captain Fury as well as using each other for leverage. Brock said he had information to give the commissioner that would put you behind bars for good and Ross accepted. I don't know who he is, but I can find out for you in the next few days if you just give me some more time I'm sure I can--”

“That's alright. I know who he is and what he's planning. Thank you for calling, маленький цветок. I'll call Fury myself.”

He hung the phone up and sat there for a moment, he twiddled his thumbs together and sucked his teeth as he thought. Brock had decided to move pieces on his chess board and gained a very powerful pawn to use against him. Things were becoming serious. Since he had heard of Pierce's death a few weeks ago, he knew that war with Hydra wasn't going to be simple. He would have to be logical and collected, because Brock was crazy and vengeful. Bucky was going to have to double down to ensure that he came out as the victor in the end.

***

Fury dragged a hand over his face. He had always thought that he was a good guy. Sure his past was riddled with bad deeds that he was surely going to hell for, but he thought that maybe the past ten years had absolved him of that. He had joined the police academy, he helped little old ladies get their cats out of trees, he volunteered to help at risk teens! He was doing good, he was a good man. He always believed that, but now he wasn't so sure. It was as though some part of his heart was always blackened and filled with evil, and now it was just trying to get out and consume him again.

“Goddammit,” he said aloud.

On one hand, he knew that his little problem had to be taken care of, but on the other he could always stop this. Stop what he knew he was going to do and continue being a good man. But, would he really continue to be a good man for letting an innocent die? He had killed innocent people before, he had been the gun aimed at people to get them to bend for George. But, those weren't noble causes and surely those people weren't entirely innocent? However, he knew that if he didn't go through with it that a truly innocent person would die. The kid was just barely in his mid twenties, he had his whole life to fuck up and experience true happiness. Who was he to be selfish and take that kid's life away by not going through with this?

But, if he did go through with this what would happen to him? What would he say on judgement day? Dear God, I know it is a sin to commit murder but, here me out, it was for a good cause! But what did it matter any way? Wouldn't he be going to hell for all of the illegal things he had done before he turned his life around? In the grand scheme of things, was his problem really that big of a deal? Was he just making a mountain out of a mole hill?

But what if he wasn't? Hadn't Ross's alliance with Brock sealed the fact that maybe Ross deserved to die? Had he thought of that? That maybe Ross was a bad guy? Maybe he deserved to die? But he wasn't God, was he? He couldn't decide for him?

Fury pulled his gloves on harder and wiped them off with a rag he had in his pocket. He stared at the door and swallowed. Wasn't everything just fate anyway? Wasn't it just fate that he met George during a mugging and the man offered him a job? Wasn't it just fate that he saw the police boot camp after Rebecca died? Wasn't it just luck that he helped save those people in a hostage situation that promoted him to be captain? Was it not all just game of chance?

He pulled a quarter from his pocket and flipped it. It spun in the air in slow motion it felt like and landed with a tinny noise on the carpet outside of the door. Heads. He swallowed and steeled himself before pushing the door open to the foreign apartment and drew his weapon. Fate be damned, hell be damned, he be damned, this needed to be done. Ross had to be taken out of the equation, that much he knew and that much he committed to.

***

The ground was cold and hard beneath his knees and he was chained like some dog to the “king's chair” placed in the warehouse. Brock always was dramatic. He had been sitting here for an hour or so, just waiting for the raven haired man to come back and _do something_. Steve wasn't shivering in fear or from the dampness of the warehouse, he was sitting stock still and gazing out at the crowd that was forming. He bit down on the horse's bit in his mouth and glared at them.

Brock walked into the room and took his seat at his throne. Schmidt came to stand by him and smirked. Brock threaded a hand through Steve's hair and pet him.

“Today,” he announced,”is a day that will go down in history. Today, is the day that Hydra will take back New York and gain control over an entire city, and entire race of people!”

The crowd cheered,”Today,” he said softer,”is the day that _I_ assume command and turn Hydra into a weapon. Together, we will take this city back from the Russians,” he spat at the ground,” and transform the world into a new, reborn paradise.”

The men cheered again,”Together, we will bring the Avengers to their knees and we will ascend! Hail Hydra!”

The men in the room erupted into a chant of 'hail hydra' and pumped their fists in the air in mock nazi salutes. Brock sat back down and nodded to himself as he pet Steve's hair. Steve glared at him and then at the men in the audience. He hated them all. He was no longer afraid of Brock and what he would do to him, he had been exposed to the worst of it and promised himself _never again_ would be become the person he was. If he couldn't get to Bucky just yet, he would do all he could to escape and bring Hydra down from the inside out. That much he knew and that much he promised.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I'm starting the final installment to this series and it should be released around December.
> 
> *EDIT* The final installment has been postponed until further notice due to heavy real life priorities and responsibilities. This story IS still ongoing and will be updated in the future!


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